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FRr.,,,xLIN, 


MEN   OF  ACHIEVEMENT 


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INVENTORS 


BY 


PHILIP   G.    HUBERT,   jR. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1893 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBUAKY 

GMElSTiJ^UT  HILL,  MASS, 


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Copyright,  1893,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


V7 


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TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


PREFACE 


This  book,  dealing  with  our  great  inventors, 
their  origins,  hopes,  aims,  principles,  disappoint- 
ments, trials,  and  triumphs,  their  daily  life  and 
personal  character,  presents  just  enough  con- 
cerning their  inventions  to  make  the  story 
intelligible.  The  history  is 'often  a  painful  one. 
When  poor  Goodyear,  the  inventor  of  vulcan- 
ized rubber,  was  one  day  asked  what  he  wanted 
to  make  of  his  boys,  he  is  said  to  have  replied : 
"  Make  them  anything  but  inventors ;  mankind 
has  nothing  but  cuffs  and  kicks  for  those  who  try 
to  do  it  a  service." 

Meanwhile,  the  value  of  the  work  done  by 
great  inventors  is  widely  acknowledged.  In  a 
remarkable  sketch  of  the  history  of  civilization. 
Professor  Huxley  remarked,  in  1887,  that  the 
wonderful  increase  of  industrial  production  by 
the  application  of  machinery,  the  improvement 
of  old  technical  processes  and  the  invention  of 
new  ones,  constitutes  the  most  salient  feature  of 
the  world's  progress  during  the  last  fifty  years. 
If  this  was  true  a  few  years  ago,  its  truth  is  still 
more  apparent  to-day.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
within  fifty  years  power,  light,  and  heat  will  cost 
half,  perhaps  one-tenth,  of  what  they  do  now ;  and 
this  virtually  means  that  in  1943  mankind  will  be 


4:  '  PREFACE 

able  to  buy  decent  food,  shelter,  and  clothing  for 
half  or  one-tenth  of  the  labor  now  required. 
Steam  is  said  to  have  reduced  the  working 
hours  of  man  in  the  civilized  world  from  four- 
teen to  ten  a  day.  Electricity  will  mark  the 
next  giant  step  in  advance. 

With  the  many  and  superb  tools  now  at  our 
service,  of  which  our  fathers  knew  comparatively 
nothing — steam,  electricity,  the  telegraph,  tele- 
phone, phonograph,  and  the  camera — we  and  our 
descendants  ought  to  accomplish  even  greater 
wonders  than  these.  As  invention  thus  rises'  in 
the  scale  of  importance  to  humanity,  the  history 
of  the  pioneers  and,  to  the  shame  of  mankind  be 
it  said,  the  martyrs  of  the  art,  becomes  of  in- 
tense interest.  In  the  annals  of  hero-worship  the 
inventor  of  the  perfecting  press  ought  to  stand 
before  the  great  general,  and  Elias  Howe  should 
rank  before  Napoleon.  Whitney,  Howe,  Morse, 
and  Goodyear,  to  mention  but  a  few  of  our 
Americans,  contributed  thousands  of  millions  of 
dollars  to  the  nation's  wealth  and  received  com- 
paratively nothing  in  return.  Their  history  sug- 
gests as  pertinent  the  inquiry  whether  our  patent 
laws  do  not  need  a  radical  change.  The  bur- 
den and  cost  of  proving  that  an  invention  de- 
serves no  protection  ought  to  fall  upon  who- 
ever infringes  a  patent  granted  by  the  Govern- 
ment.    At  present  it  is  all  the  other  way. 

P.  G.  H.,  Jr. 

New  York,  September,  1893. 


CONTENTS 


I.  Benjamin  Franklin 
II.  Robert  Fulton, 

III.  Eli  Whitney,  . 

IV.  Elias  Howe, 
V.  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse 

VI.  Charles  Goodyear, 
VII.  John  Ericsson, 
VIII.  Cyrus  Hall  McCormick, 
IX.  Thomas  A.  Edison, 
X.  Alexander  Graham  Bell, 
XI.  American  Inventors,  Past  and  Present, 

James  M.  Townsend,  E.  L.  Drake,  Alvan  Clark, 
John  Fitch,  Oliver  Evans,  Amos  Whittemore,  Thomas 
Blan chard,  Richard  M.  Hoe,  Thomas  W.  Harvey,  C. 
L.  Sholes,  B.  B.  Hotchkiss,  Charles  F.  Brush,  Rudolph 
Eickemeyer,  George  Westinghouse,  Jr. 


PAGE 

9 
45 
69 

99 
III 

155 
178 
207 
223 
264 
270 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FULL-PAGE 

FACING 

Benjamin  Franklin,  ....        {Frontispiece.)      page 

Departure  of  the  Clermont  on  her  First  Voyage,  6o 

Charles  Goodyear, 155 

John  Ericsson, 178 

Cyrus  Hall  McCormick, 207 

Thomas  A.  Edison, 223 

Edison  in  his  Laboratory, 247 

Professor  Bell  Sending  the  First  Telephone  Mes- 
sage FROM  New  York  to  Chicago,  ....  264 

ILLUSTRATIONS   IN  THE   TEXT 

PAGE 

The  Franklin  Stove,        .        .        .        .        .        .        .10 

Franklin's  Birthplace,  Boston, 14 

Franklin  Entering  Philadelphia,  .        .        .        .17 

The  Franklin  Penny, 27 

Franklin's  Grave, 43 

Robert  Fulton,          ........  46 

Birthplace  of  Robert  Fulton,        .        .        .        ...  48 

Fulton  Blowing  Up  a  Danish  Brig,      •        ^        »        •  53 

John  Fitch's  Steamboat  at  Philadelphia,    ...  56 

Fulton's  First  Experiment  with  Paddle-wheels,       .  57 

The  "Demologos,"  or  "Fulton  the  First,"       .        .  65 

The  Clermont, 68 

Eli  Whitney,      . 70 

Whitney  Watching  the  Cotton-Gin,     ....  75 

The  Cotton-Gin, 78 

Elias  Howe. 100 


LI8T  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  1 

PAGE 

Birthplace  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  Built  1775,    .        .        .111 

S.  F.  B.  Morse, 113 

Under    Side    of    a    Modern    Switchboard,    showing 

2,000  Wires, 121 

The  First  Telegraph   Instrument,  as   Exhibited  in 

1837  BY  Morse, <>     125 

The  Modern  Morse  Telegraph, 127 

Morse  Making  his  own  Instrument,     .        .        .        .129 
Train  Telegraph — the  Message  Transmitted  by  In- 
duction FROM  the  Moving  Train  to  the  Single 

Wire, 131 

Interior  of  a  Car  on  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad, 
showing   the   Method  of  Operating  the  Train 

Telegraph, 132 

Diagram    showing    the    Method    of    Telegraphing 

from  a  Moving  Train  by  Induction,       .        .        .     134 
Morse  in  his  Study, 139 

The  Siphon  Recorder  for  Receiving  Cable  Mes- 
sages—  Office  of  the  Commercial  Cable  Com- 
pany, I  Broad  Street,  New  York,  ....     146 

No.  5  West  Twenty-second  Street,  New  York,  where 

Morse  Lived  for  Many  Years  and  Died,       .        -151 

Calenders  Heated  Internally  by  Steam,  for  Spread- 
ing India  Rubber  into  Sheets  or  upon  Cloth, 
called  the  "Chaffee  Machine,"     ....     164 

Charles  Goodyear' s  Exhibition  of  Hard  India-rub- 
ber Goods  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  Sydenham, 
England, 169 

Council  Medal  of  the  Exhibition,  185  i,      .        .        -173 

Grande  Medaille  d'Honneur,  Exposition  Universelle 

de  1855, •    .        .     176 

John  Ericsson's  Birthplace  and  Monument,         .        .180 

The  Novelty  Locomotive,  built  by  Ericsson  to  com- 
pete with  Stephenson's  Rocket,  1829,  ,        ,         ,     184 

Ericsson  on  his  Arrival  in  England,  agpd  Twenty- 
three, i86 

Mrs.  John  Ericsson,  n±e  Amelia  Byam,         .        .        .187 


S  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Exterior  View  of  Ericsson's   House,   No.   36  Beach 

Street,  New  York,  1890, 189 

Solar-engine  Adapted  to  the  Use  of  Hot  Air,  .  .  191 
Sectional  View   of   Monitor   through   Turret   and 

Pilot-house, 198 

The  Original  Monitor,    . 199 

Fac-simile  of  a  Pencil  Sketch  by  Ericsson,  giving  a 

Transverse    Section    of    his    Original    Monitor 

Plan,  with  a  Longitudinal  Section  drawn  over  it,  201 

Interior  of  the  Destroyer,  Looking  toward  the  Bow,  202 

Development  of  the  Monitor  Idea,  ....  204 
The    Room    in  which    Ericsson   Worked    for    More 

THAN  Twenty  Years, 206 

Farm  where  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  was  Born  and  Raised,  209 
Exterior  of  the  Blacksmith  Shop  where  the  First 

Reaper  was  Built, 212 

Interior  of  the  Blacksmith  Shop  where  the  First 

Reaper  was  Built, 215 

The  First  Reaper, 217 

Edison's  Paper  Carbon  Lamp, 224 

Edison  Listening  to  his  Phonograph,  ....  227 
From     Edison's     Newspaper,     the     "  Grand     Trunk 

Herald," 230 

Edison's  Tinfoil  Phonograph— the  First  Practical 

Machine, 237 

Vote  Recorder — Edison's  First  Patented  Invention,  243 

Edison's  Menlo  Park  Electric  Locomotive  (1880),     .  250 

The  Home  of  Thomas  A.  Edison, 257 

Edison's  Laboratory, 258 

Library  at  Edison's  Laboratory,   .....  262 

Alvan  Clark, 276 

C.  L.  Sholes, 286 

B.  B.  Hotchkiss,        .         .        .        .         .        .        .         .288 

Charles  F.  Brush, 290 

Rudolph  Eickemeyer, .  294 

George  Westinghouse,  Jr.,      .         .        .         .        .        .  296 


INVENTORS 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 

Benjamin  Franklin's  activity  and  resource 
in  the  field  of  invention  really  partook  of  the  in- 
tellectual breadth  of  the  man  of  whom  Turgot 
wrote : 

"  Eripuit  coelo  fulmen,  sceptrumque  tyrannis." 

"  He  snatched  the  thunderbolt  from  heaven, 
And  the  sceptre  from  the  hands  of  tyrants." 

And  of  which  bit  of  verse  Franklin  once  dryly 
remarked,  that  as  to  the  thunder,  he  left  it  where 
he  found  it,  and  that  more  than  a  million  of  his 
countrymen  co-operated  with  him  in  snatching 
the  sceptre.  Those  persons  who  knew  Franklin, 
the  inventor,  only  as  the  genius  to  whom  we  owe 
the  lightning-rod,  will  be  amazed  at  the  range  of 
his  activity.  For  half  a  century  his  mind  seems 
to  have  been  on  the  alert  concerning  the  why 
and  wherefore  of  every  phenomenon  for  which 
the  explanation  was  not  apparent.  Nothing  in 
nature  failed  to  interest  him.  Had  he  lived  in 
an  era  of  patents  he  might  have  rivalled  Edison 
in  the  number  of  his  patentable  devices,  and  had 


10  INVENTORS 

he  chosen  to  make  money  from  such  devices,  his 
gains  would  certainly  have  been  fabulous.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Franklin  never  applied  for  a 
patent,  though  frequently 
urged  to  do  so,  and  he  made 
no  money  by  his  inventions. 
One  of  the  most  popular  of 
these,  the  Franklin  stove, 
which   device,   after    a    half- 

The  Franklin  Stove.  CCUtury      of     dlSUSC,    1  S      U  O  W 

again  popular,  he  made  a 
present  to  his  early  friend,  Robert  Grace,  an  iron 
founder,  who  made  a  business  of  it.  The  Gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania  offered  to  give  Franklin  a 
monopoly  of  the  sale  of  these  stoves  for  a  num- 
ber of  years,  ''  But  I  declined  it,"  writes  the 
inventor,  "from  a  principle  which  has  ever 
weighed  with  me  on  such  occasions,  viz. :  That 
as  we  enjoy  great  advantages  from  the  inven- 
tions of  others,  we  should  be  glad  of  an  oppor- 
tunity to  serve  others  by  any  invention  of  ours ; 
and  this  we  should  do  freely  and  generously. 
An  ironmonger  in  London,  however,  assuming  a 
good  deal  of  my  pamphlet  (describing  the  prin- 
ciple and  working  of  the  stove),  and  working  it 
up  into  his  own,  and  making  some  small  change 
in  the  machine,  which  rather  hurt  its  opera- 
tion, got  a  patent  for  it  there,  and  made,  as  I 
was  told,  a  little  fortune  by  it." 

The  complete  list  of  inventions,  devices,  and 
improvements  of  which  Franklin  was  the  origi- 
nator, or  a  leading  spirit  and  contributor,  is  so 
long  a  one  that  a  dozen  pages  would   not  suffice 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  11 

for  it.  I  give  here  a  brief  summary,  as  compiled 
by  Parton  in  his  excellent  "  Life  of  Franklin." 
"  It  is  incredible,"  Franklin  once  wrote,  "  the 
quantity  of  good  that  may  be  done  in  a  country 
by  a  single  man  who  will  7nake  a  business  oi  it  and 
not  suffer  himself  to  be  diverted  from  that  pur- 
pose by  different  avocations,  studies,  or  amuse- 
ments." As  a  commentary  upon  this  sentiment, 
here  is  a  catalogue  of  the  achievements  of  Benja- 
min Franklin  that  may  fairly  come  under  the 
title  of  inventions : 

He  established  and  inspired  the  Junto,  the 
most  useful  and  pleasant  American  club  of  which 
we  have  knowledge. 

He  founded  the  Philadelphia  Library,  parent 
of  a  thousand  libraries,  and  which  marked  the 
beginning  of  an  intellectual  movement  of  endless 
good  to  the  whole  country. 

He  first  turned  to  great  account  the  engine  of 
advertising,  an  indispensable  element  in  modern 
business. 

He  published  "  Poor  Richard,"  a  record  of 
homely  wisdom  in  such  shape  that  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  readers  were  made  better  and 
stronger  by  it. 

He  created  the  post-oflfice  system  of  America, 
and  was  the  first  champion  of  a  reformed  spelling. 

He  invented  the  Franklin  stove,  which  econo- 
mized fuel,  and  suggested  valuable  improve- 
ments in  ventilation  and  the  building  of  chim- 
neys. 

He  robbed  thunder  of  its  terrors  and  lightning 
of  some  of  its  power  to  destroy. 


12  INVENTORS 

He  founded  the  American  Philosophical  So- 
ciety, the  first  organization  in  America  of  the 
friends  of  science. 

He  suggested  the  use  of  mineral  manures,  in- 
troduced the  basket  willow,  promoted  the  early 
culture  of  silk,  and  pointed  out  the  advisability 
of  white  clothing  in  hot  weather. 

He  measured  the  temperature  of  the  Gulf 
Stream,  and  discovered  that  northeast  storms 
may  begin  in  the  southwest. 

He  pointed  out  the  advantage  of  building 
ships  in  water-tight  compartments,  taking  the 
hint  from  the  Chinese,  and  first  urged  the  use  of 
oil  as  a  means  of  quieting  dangerous  seas. 

Besides  these  great  achievements,  accom- 
plished largely  as  recreation  from  his  life  work 
as  economist  and  statesman,  Benjamin  Franklin 
helped  the  whole  race  of  inventors  by  a  remark 
that  has  been  of  incalculable  value  and  comfort 
to  theorists  and  dreamers  the  world  over.  When 
someone  spoke  rather  contemptuously  in  Frank- 
lin's presence  of  Montgolfier's  balloon  experi- 
ments, and  asked  of  what  use  they  were,  the 
great  American  replied  in  words  now  historic : 
*'  Of  what  use  is  a  new-born  babe  ?  " 

*'  This  self-taught  American,'*  said  Lord  Jef- 
frey, in  the  Edinburgh  Reviezv  oi  July,  1806,  "is 
the  most  rational,  perhaps,  of  all  philosophers. 
He  never  loses  sight  of  common  sense  in  any  of 
his  speculations.  No  individual,  perhaps,  ever 
possessed  a  greater  understanding,  or  was  so 
seldom  obstructed  in  the  use  of  it  by  indolence, 
enthusiasm,  or  authority.    Dr.  Franklin  received 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  13 

no  regular  education ;  and  he  spent  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  in  a  society  where  there  was  no 
relish  and  no  encouragement  for  literature.  On 
an  ordinary  mind,  these  circumstances  would 
have  produced  their  usual  effects,  of  repressing 
all  sorts  of  intellectual  ambition  or  activity,  and 
perpetuating  a  generation  of  incurious  mechan- 
ics ;  but  to  an  understanding  like  Franklin's,  we 
cannot  help  considering  them  as  peculiarly  pro- 
pitious, and  imagine  that  we  can  trace  back  to 
them  distinctly  almost  all  the  peculiarities  of  his 
intellectual  character." 

The  main  outlines  of  Franklin's  life  and  ca- 
reer are  so  familiar  to  everyone,  that  I  may  as 
well  pass  at  once  to  the  story  of  his  work  as  an 
inventor.  We  all  know,  or  ought  to  know,  that 
Benjamin,  the  fifteenth  child  of  Josiah  Franklin, 
the  Boston  soap-boiler,  was  born  in  that  town 
on  the  17th  of  January,  1706,  and  established  him- 
self as  a  printer  in  Philadelphia  in  1728.  That 
he  prospered  and  founded  the  Gazette  a  few 
years  later,  and  became  Postmaster  of  Phila- 
delphia in  1737;  that  after  valuable  services  to 
the  Colonies  as  their  agent  in  England,  he 
was  appointed  United  States  Minister  at  the 
Court  of  France  upon  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence ;  and  that  in  1782  he  had  the  supreme 
satisfaction  of  signing  at  Paris  the  treaty  of 
peace  with  England  by  which  the  independence 
of  the  Colonies  was  assured.  That  he  died  full 
of  honors  at  Philadelphia  in  April,  1790,  and  that 
Congress,  as  a  testimony  of  the  gratitude  of  the 
Thirteen  States  and  of  their  sorrow  for  his  loss, 


14 


INVENTORS 


appointed  a  general  mourning  throughout  the 
States  for  a  period  of  two  months. 

The  great  invention  or  discovery  which  entitles 


Benjamin  Franklin  to 
rank  at  the  head  of 
American  inventors  was,  of  course,  the  identifi- 
cation of  lightning  with  electricity,  and  his  sug- 
gestion of  metallic  conductors  so  arranged  as 
to  render  the  discharge  from  the  clouds  a  harm- 
less one.     In  order  to  appreciate  the  originality 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  15 

and  value  of  this  discovery,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
view briefly  what  the  world  knew  of  the  subject 
at  that  day. 

For  a  hundred  years  before  Franklin's  time, 
electricity  had  been  studied  in  Europe  without 
much  distinct  progress  resulting.  A  thousand 
experiments  had  been  performed  and  described. 
Gunpowder  had  been  exploded  by  the  spark 
from  a  lady's  finger,  and  children  had  been  in- 
sulated by  hanging  them  from  the  ceiling  by 
silk  cords.  A  tolerable  machine  had  been  de- 
vised for  exciting  electricity,  though  most  ex- 
perimenters still  used  a  glass  tube.  Several 
volumes  of  electrical  observations  and  experi- 
ments had  appeared,  and  yet  what  had  been 
done  was  little  more  than  a  repetition  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  with  better  means,  of  the  orig- 
inal experiment  of  rubbing  a  piece  of  amber 
on  the  sleeve  of  the  philosopher's  coat.  Experi- 
menters in  1745  could  produce  a  more  powerful 
spark  and  play  a  greater  variety  of  tricks  with 
it  than  Dr.  Gilbert,  the  English  experimenter  of 
1600,  but  that  was  about  all  the  advantage  they 
had  over  him. 

So-called  experts  had  attempted,  with  more  or 
less  satisfaction  to  themselves,  to  answer  the 
question  addressed  by  the  mad  Lear  to  poor 
Tom :  ''  Let  me  talk  with  this  philosopher. 
What  is  the  cause  of  thunder?"  Pliny  thought 
he  had  explained  it  when  he  called  it  an 
earthquake  in  the  air.  Dr.  Lister  announced 
that  lightning  was  caused  by  the  sudden  ig- 
nition  of    immense    quantities    of    fine    floating 


16  INVENTORS 

sulphur.  Jonathan  Edwards,  in  his  diary  of 
1722,  records  the  popular  impression  of  the 
day  upon  this  subject :  ''  Lightning,"  he  says, 
''seems  to  be  an  almost  infinitely  fine  combus- 
tible matter,  that  floats  in  the  air,  that  takes 
fire  by  sudden  and  mighty  fermentation,  that  is 
some  way  promoted  by  the  cool  and  moisture, 
and  perhaps  attraction  of  the  clouds.  By  this 
sudden  agitation,  this  fine  floating  matter  is 
driven  forth  with  a  mighty  force  one  way  or 
other,  whichever  way  it  is  directed,  by  the  cir- 
cumstances and  temperature  of  the  circumja- 
cent air ;  for  cold  and  heat,  density  and  rarity, 
moisture  and  dryness,  have  almost  an  infinitely 
strong  influence  upon  the  fine  particles  of  mat- 
ter. This  fluid  matter  thus  projected,  still  fer- 
menting to  the  same  degree,  divides  the  air  as 
it  goes,  and  every  moment  receives  a  new  im- 
pulse by  the  continued  fermentation  ;  and  as  its 
motion  received  its  direction,  at  first,  from  the 
different  temperature  of  the  air  on  different 
sides,  so  its  direction  is  changed,  according  to  the 
temperature  of  the  air  it  meets  w4th,  which 
renders  the  path  of  the  lightning  so  crooked." 

Even  this  explanation  was  a  daring  bit  of  spec- 
ulation in  Jonathan  Edwards,  for  thunder  and 
lightning  were  then  commonly  regarded  as  the 
physical  expression  of  God's  wrath  against  the 
insects  He  had  created. 

Mr.  Peter  CoUinson,  the  London  agent  of  the 
library  that  Franklin  had  founded  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1732,  was  accustomed  to  send  over  with 
the  annual  parcel  of  books  any  work  or  curious 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 


17 


object  that  chanced  to  be  in  vogue  in  London  at 
the  time.     In  1746  he  sent  one  of  the  new  electri- 


Franklin  Entering  Philadelphia. 


cal  tubes  with  a  paper  of  directions  for  using  it. 
The  tubes  then  commonly  used  were  two  feet 
and  a  half  long,  and  as  thick  as  a  man  could  con- 
veniently grasp.     They  were  rubbed  with  a  piece 


18  IJSrVENTORS 

of  cloth  or  buckskin,  and  held  in  contact  with 
the  object  to  be  charged.  Franklin  had  already 
seen  one  of  these  tubes  in  Boston,  and  had  been 
astonished  by  its  properties.  No  sooner,  there- 
fore, was  it  unpacked  at  the  Library,  than  he  re- 
peated the  experiments  he  had  seen  in  Boston, 
as  well  as  those  described  by  Collinson.  The 
subject  completely  fascinated  him.  He  gave 
himself  up  to  it.  Procuring  other  tubes,  he  dis- 
tributed them  among  his  friends  and  set  them 
all  rubbing.  "  I  never,"  he  writes  in  1747,  *' was 
before  engaged  in  any  study  that  so  totally 
engrossed  my  attention  and  my  time  as  this  has 
done ;  for  what  with  making  experiments  when 
I  can  be  alone,  and  repeating  to  my  friends  and 
acquaintances,  who,  from  the  novelty  of  the 
thing,  come  continually  in  crowds  to  see  them,  I 
have  during  some  months  past  had  little  leisure 
for  anything  else." 

Franklin  claimed  no  credit  for  what  he 
achieved  in  electricity.  During  the  winter  of 
1746-7  he  and  his  friends  experimented  frequent- 
ly, and  observed  electrical  attraction  and  repul- 
sion with  care.  That  electricity  was  not  created, 
but  only  collected  by  friction,  was  one  of  their 
first  conjectures,  the  correctness  of  which  they 
soon  demonstrated  by  a  number  of  experiments. 
Before  having  heard  of  the  Leyden  jar  coated 
with  tin-foil,  these  Philadelphia  experimenters 
substituted  granulated  lead  for  the  water  em- 
ployed by  Professor  Maschenbroeck.  They 
fired  spirits  and  lighted  candles  with  the  electric 
spark.    They  performed  rare  tricks  with  a  spider 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  19 

made  of  burnt  cork.  Philip  S}^^  mounted  one 
of  the  tubes  upon  a  crank  and  employed  a  cannon- 
ball  as  a  prime  conductor,  thus  obtaining  the  same 
result  without  much  tedious  rubbing  of  the  tube. 

The  summer  of  1747  was  devoted  to  preparing 
the  province  for  defence.  But  during  the  fol- 
lowing winter  the  Philadelphians  resumed  their 
experiments.  The  wondrous  Leyden  jar  was  the 
object  of  Franklin's  constant  observation.  His 
method  of  work  is  well  shown  in  his  own  ac- 
count of  an  experiment  during  this  winter.  The 
jar  used  was  Maschenbroeck's  original  device  of 
a  bottle  of  water  with  a  wire  running  through 
the  cork. 

"  Purposing,"  writes  Franklin,  "  to  analyse  the 
electrified  bottle,  in  order  to  find  wherein  its 
strength  lay,  we  placed  it  on  glass,  and  drew  out 
the  cork  and  wire,  which  for  that  purpose  had 
been  loosely  put  in.  Then,  taking  the  bottle  in 
one  hand,  and  bringing  a  finger  of  the  other  near 
its  mouth,  a  strong  spark  came  from  the  water, 
and  the  shock  was  as  violent  as  if  the  wire  had 
remained  in  it,  which  showed  that  the  force  did 
not  lie  in  the  wire.  Then,  to  find  if  it  resided  in 
the  water,  being  crowded  into  and  condensed  in 
it,  as  confined  by  the  glass,  which  had  been  our 
former  opinion,  we  electrified  the  bottle  again, 
and  placing  it  on  glass,  drew  out  the  wire  and 
cork  as  before  ;  then,  taking  up  the  bottle,  we 
decanted  all  its  water  into  an  empty  bottle, 
which  likewise  stood  on  glass  ;  and  taking  up 
that  other  bottle,  we  expected,  if  the  force  re- 
sided in  the  water,  to  find  a  shock  from  it.     But 


20  INVENTORS 

there  was  none.  We  judged  then  that  it  must 
either  be  lost  in  decanting  or  remain  in  the  first 
bottle.  The  latter  we  found  to  be  true ;  for 
that  bottle  on  trial  gave  the  shock,  though  filled 
up  as  it  stood  with  fresh  un electrified  water 
from  a  tea-pot.  To  find,  then,  whether  glass  had 
this  property  merely  as  glass,  or  whether  the 
form  contributed  anything  to  it,  we  took  a  pane 
of  sash  glass,  and  laying  it  on  the  hand,  placed 
a  plate  of  lead  on  its  upper  surface  ;  then  elec- 
trified that  plate,  and  bringing  a  finger  to  it, 
there  was  a  spark  and  shock.  We  then  took 
two  plates  of  lead  of  equal  dimensions,  but  less 
than  the  glass  by  two  inches  every  way,  and 
electrified  the  glass  between  them,  by  electrify- 
ing the  uppermost  lead ;  then  separated  the 
glass  from  the  lead,  in  doing  which,  what  little 
fire  might  be  in  the  lead  was  taken  out,  and  the 
glass  being  touched  in  the  electrified  parts  with 
a  finger,  afforded  only  very  small  pricking 
sparks,  but  a  great  number  of  them  might  be 
taken  from  different  places.  Then  dexterously 
placing  it  again  between  the  leaden  plates,  and 
completing  a  circle  between  the  two  surfaces,  a 
violent  shock  ensued ;  which  demonstrated  the 
power  to  reside  in  glass  as  glass,  and  that  the 
non-electrics  in  contact  served  only,  like  the  ar- 
mature of  a  loadstone,  to  unite  the  force  of  the 
several  parts,  and  bring  them  at  once  to  any  point 
desired  ;  it  being  the  property  of  a  non-electric, 
that  the  whole  body  instantly  receives  or  gives 
what  electrical  fire  is  given  to,  or  taken  from, 
any  one  of  its  parts. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  21 

"  Upon  this  we  made  what  we  called  an  elec- 
trical battery,  consisting  of  eleven  panes  of  large 
sash  glass,  armed  with  thin  leaden  plates,  pasted 
on  each  side,  placed  vertically,  and  supported  at 
two  inches'  distance  on  silk  cords,  with  thick 
hooks  of  leaden  wire,  one  from  each  side,  stand- 
ing upright,  distant  from  each  other,  and  con- 
venient communications  of  wire  and  chain,  from 
the  giving  side  of  one  pane  to  the  receiving  side 
of  the  other  ;  that  so  the  whole  might  be  charged 
together  with  the  same  labor  as  one  single 
pane." 

In  1748  Franklin,  being  then  forty-two  years 
old,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  ample  income 
from  his  business  as  printer  and  publisher,  sold 
out  to  his  foreman,  David  Hall,  and  was  free 
to  devote  himself  wholly  to  his  beloved  experi- 
ments. He  had  built  himself  a  home  in  a  retired 
spot  on  the  outskirts  of  Philadelphia,  and  with 
an  income  which  in  our  days  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  $15,000  or  $20,000  a  year,  he  was  consid- 
ered a  fairly  rich  man.  Having  thus  settled  his 
business  affairs  in  a  manner  which  proved  that 
he  knew  perfectly  well  what  money  was  worth, 
he  took  up  his  electrical  studies  again  and  ex- 
tended them  from  the  machine  to  the  part 
played  in  nature  by  electricity.  The  patience 
with  which  he  observed  the  electrical  phenomena 
of  the  heavens,  the  acuteness  displayed  by  him 
in  drawing  plausible  inferences  from  his  obser- 
vations, and  the  rapidity  with  which  he  arrived 
at  all  that  we  now  know  of  thunder  and  light- 
ning, still  excite    the  astonishment  of   all   who 


22  INVENTORS 

read  the  narratives  he  has  left  us  of  his  proceed- 
ings. During  the  whole  winter  of  1748-49  and 
the  summer  following,  he  was  feeling  his  way 
to  his  final  conclusions  on  the  subject.  Early 
in  1749  he  drew  up  a  series  of  fifty-six  observa- 
tions, entitled  "  Observations  and  Suppositions 
towards  forming  a  new  Hypothesis  for  explain- 
ing the  several  Phenomena  of  Thundergusts." 
Nearly  all  that  he  afterward  demonstrated  on 
this  subject  is  anticipated  in  this  truly  remarka- 
ble paper,  which  was  soon  followed  by  the  most 
famous  of  all  his  electrical  writings,  that  en- 
titled "  Opinions  and  Conjectures  concerning 
the  Properties  and  Effects  of  the  Electrical 
Matter,  and  the  Means  of  preserving  Buildings, 
Ships,  etc.,  from  Lightning;  arising  from  Ex- 
periments and  Observations  made  at  Philadel- 
phia, 1749." 

Franklin  sets  forth  in  this  masterly  paper  the 
similarity  of  electricity  and  lightning,  and  the 
property  of  points  to  draw  off  electricity.  It  is 
this  treatise  which  contains  the  two  suggestions 
that  gave  to  the  name  of  Franklin  its  first  celeb- 
rity. Both  suggestions  are  contained  in  one 
brief  passage,  which  follows  the  description  of  a 
splendid  experiment,  in  which  a  miniature  light- 
ning-rod had  conducted  harmlessly  away  the 
electricity  of  an  artificial  thunder-storm. 

"  If  these  things  are  so,"  continues  the  philoso- 
pher, after  stating  the  results  of  his  experiment, 
"  may  not  the  knowledge  of  this  power  of  points 
be  of  use  to  mankind  in  preserving  houses, 
churches,   ships,   etc.,  from  the  stroke  of  light- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  23 

ning,  by  directing  us  to  fix  on  the  highest  part 
of  those  edifices  upright  rods  of  iron,  made 
sharp  as  a  needle  and  gilt  to  prevent  rusting,  and 
from  the  foot  of  those  rods,  a  wire  down  the  out- 
side of  the  building  into  the  ground,  or  down 
round  one  of  the  shrouds  of  a  ship,  and  down 
her  side  till  it  reaches  the  water?  Would  not 
these  pointed  rods  probably  draw  the  electrical 
fire  silently  out  of  a  cloud  before  it  came  nigh 
enough  to  strike,  and  thereby  secure  us  from 
that  most  sudden  and  terrible  mischief  ?  " 

The  second  of  these  immortal  suggestions  was 
one  that  immediately  arrested  the  attention  of 
European  electricians  when  the  paper  was  pub- 
lished.    It  was  in  these  words  : 

*'  To  determine  the  question,  whether  the 
clouds  that  contain  lightning  are  electrified  or 
not,  I  would  propose  an  experiment  to  be  tried 
where  it  may  be  done  conveniently.  On  the  top 
of  some  high  tower  or  steeple,  place  a  kind  of 
sentry-box,  big  enough  to  contain  a  man  and  an 
electric  stand.  From  the  middle  of  the  stand  let 
an  iron  rod  rise  and  pass,  bending  out  of  the 
door,  and  then  upright  twenty  or  thirty  feet, 
pointed  very  sharp  at  the  end.  If  the  electrical 
stand  be  kept  clean  and  dry,  a  man  standing  on 
it,  when  such  clouds  are  passing  low,  might  be 
electrified  and  afford  sparks,  the  rod  drawing 
fire  to  him  from  a  cloud.  If  any  danger  to  the 
man  should  be  apprehended  (though  I  think 
there  would  be  none),  let  him  stand  on  the  floor 
of  his  box,  and  now  and  then  bring  near  to  the 
rod  the  loop  of  a  wire  that  has  one  end  fastened 


24  INVENTORS 

to  the  leads,  he  holding  it  by  a  wax  handle ;  so 
the  sparks,  if  the  rod  is  electrified,  will  strike 
from  the  rod  to  the  wire  and  not  affect  him." 

A  friend  once  asked  Franklin  how  he  came  to 
hit  upon  such  an  idea.  His  reply  was  to  quote 
an  extract  from  the  minutes  he  kept  of  the  ex- 
periments he  made.  This  extract,  dated  No- 
vember 7,  1749,  was  as  follows:  "Electrical  fluid 
agrees  with  lightning  in  these  particulars:  i. 
Giving  light.  2.  Color  of  the  light.  3.  Crooked 
direction.  4.  Swift  motion.  5.  Being  conducted 
by  metals.  6.  Crack  or  noise  in  exploding.  7. 
Subsisting  in  water  or  ice.  8.  Rending  bodies 
it  passes  through.  9.  Destroying  animals.  10. 
Melting  metals.  11.  Firing  inflammable  sub- 
stances. 12.  Sulphurous  smell.  The  electric 
fluid  is  attracted  by  points.  We  do  not  know 
whether  this  property  is  in  lightning.  But  since 
they  agree  in  all  the  particulars  wherein  we  can 
already  compare  them,  is  it  not  probable  they 
agree  likewise  in  this?  Let  the  experiment  be 
made." 

In  this  discovery,  therefore,  there  was  nothing 
of  chance  ;  it  was  a  legitimate  deduction  from 
patiently  accumulated  facts. 

It  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1752  that  Frank- 
lin thought  of  making  his  suggested  experiment 
with  a  kite.  The  country  around  Philadelphia 
presents  no  high  hills,  and  he  was  not  aware  till 
later  that  the  roof  of  any  dwelling-house  would 
have  answered  as  well  as  the  peak  of  Teneriffe. 
There  were  no  steeples  in  Philadelphia  at  that 
day.     The  vestry  of  Christ  Church  talked  about 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  25 

erecting  a  steeple,  but  it  was  not  begun  until 
1753-  On  the  15th  of  June,  1752,  Franklin  de- 
cided to  fly  that  immortal  kite.  Wishing  to 
avoid  the  ridicule  of  a  failure,  he  took  no  one 
with  him  except  his  son,  who,  by  the  way,  was 
not  the  small  boy  shown  in  countless  pictures 
of  the  incident,  but  a  stalwart  young  man  of 
twenty-two.  The  kite  had  been  made  of  a  large 
silk  handkerchief,  and  fitted  out  with  a  piece  of 
sharpened  iron  wire.  Part  of  the  string  was  of 
hemp,  and  the  part  to  be  held  in  the  hand  was  of 
silk.  At  the  end  of  the  hempen  string  was  tied 
a  key,  and  in  a  convenient  shed  was  a  Leyden  jar 
in  which  to  collect  some  of  the  electricity  from 
the  clouds.  When  the  first  thunder-laden  clouds 
reached  the  kite,  there  were  no  signs  of  elec- 
tricity from  Franklin's  key,  but  just  as  he  had 
begun  to  doubt  the  success  of  the  experiment, 
he  saw  the  fibres  of  the  hempen  string  begin  to 
rise.  Approaching  his  hand  to  the  key,  he  got 
an  electric  spark,  and  was  then  able  to  charge  the 
Leyden  jar  and  get  a  stronger  shock.  Then  the 
happy  philosopher  drew  in  his  wet  kite  and 
went  home  to  write  his  modest  account  of  one  of 
the  most  notable  experiments  made  by  man. 

Franklin's  fame  as  the  first  to  suggest  the 
identity  of  lightning  and  electricity  would  have 
been  safe,  however,  even  without  the  famous 
kite-flying  achievement.  A  month  before  that 
June  thunderstorm  his  suggestions  had  been  put 
into  practice  in  Europe  with  complete  success. 
Mr.  Peter  Collinson,  to  whom  Franklin  ad- 
dressed from  time  to  time  long  letters  about  his 


26  INVENTORS 

experiments  and  conjectures,  had  caused  them 
to  be  read  at  the  meetings  of  the  Royal  Society, 
of  which  he  (Collinson)  was  a  member.  That 
learned  body,  however,  did  not  deem  them 
worthy  of  publication  among  its  transactions, 
and  a  letter  of  Franklin's  containing  the  sub- 
stance of  his  conjectures  respecting  lightning 
was  laughed  at.  The  only  news  that  reached 
Philadelphia  concerning  these  letters  was  that 
Watson  and  other  English  experimenters  did  not 
agree  with  Franklin.  It  was  only  in  May,  175 1, 
that  a  pamphlet  was  finally  published  in  London, 
entitled  ''  New  Experiments  and  Observations  in 
Electricity,  made  at  Philadelphia,  in  America." 
A  copy  having  been  presented  to  the  Royal  So- 
ciety, Watson  was  requested  to  make  an  abstract 
of  its  contents,  which  he  did,  giving  generous 
praise  to  the  author. 

Before  the  year  came  to  a  close  Franklin  was 
famous.  There  was  something  in  the  drawing 
down,  for  mere  experiment,  of  the  dread  electric- 
ity of  heaven  th?tt  appealed  not  less  powerfully 
to  the  imagination  of  the  ignorant  than  to  the 
understanding  of  the  learned.  And  the  marvel 
was  the  greater  that  the  bold  idea  should  have 
come  from  so  remote  a  place  as  Philadelphia. 
By  a  unanimous  vote  the  Royal  Society  elected 
Franklin  a  member,  and  the  next  year  bestowed 
upon  him  the  Copley  medal.  Yale  College  and 
then  Harvard  bestowed  upon  him  the  honorary 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  there  was  no 
lack  of  opposition  to  the  new  doctrine  of  light- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 


27 


ning-rods.  Every  new  movement  of  radical  char- 
acter is  denounced  more  or  less  fiercely.  The  last 
years  of  Newton's  life  were  perplexed  by  the 
charge  that  his  theory  of  gravitation  tended  to 
"  materialize  "  religion.  Insuring  houses  against 
fire  was  opposed  as  an  interference  with  the  pre- 
rogatives of  deity.  The  establishment  of  the 
Roj^al  Society  was  opposed  upon  the  ground 
that  the  study  of  natural  philosophy,  grounded, 
as  it  was,  upon  experimental  evidence,  tended  to 


The   Franklin   Penny. 

weaken  the  force  of  evidence  not  so  founded; 
and  this  objection  was  deemed  of  sufficient 
weight  to  call  for  serious  answer.  Franklin's 
daring  proposal  to  neutralize  the  "artillery  of 
heaven,"  of  course  could  not  escape,  and  the  im- 
piety of  lightning-rods  was  widely  discussed, 
often  with  acrimony.  Mr.  Kinnersley,  one  of 
Franklin's  friends,  who  lectured  for  several  years 
upon  electricity,  when  advertising  the  outline  of 
his  subject  always  announced  his  intention  to 
show  that  the  erection  of  lightning-rods  was 
"  not  chargeable  with  presumption  nor  incon- 
sistent with  any  of  the  principles  either  of  nat- 


28  INVENTORS 

ural  or  revealed  religion."  Quincy  relates  in 
his  "  History  of  Harvard  College,"  that  in 
November,  1755,  a  shock  of  earthquake  having 
been  felt  in  New  England,  a  Boston  clergy- 
man preached  a  sermon  on  the  subject,  in 
which  he  contended  that  the  lightning-rods,  by 
accumulating  the  electricity  in  the  earth,  had 
caused  the  earthquake.  Professor  Winthrop, 
of  Harvard,  thought  it  worth  while  to  defend 
Franklin.  "  In  1770,"  Mr.  Quincy  adds,  "  another 
Boston  clergyman  opposed  the  use  of  the  rods 
on  the  ground  that,  as  the  lightning  was  one  of 
the  means  of  punishing  the  sins  of  mankind,  and 
of  warning  them  from  the  commission  of  sin,  it 
was  impious  to  prevent  its  full  execution."  And 
to  this  attack  also  Professor  Winthrop  replied. 
Apparently  Franklin  himself  thought  it  wise  to 
conciliate  the  opposition  of  some  so-called  relig- 
ious people  of  the  day,  for  an  account  of  the 
lightning-rod  which  appears  in  Poor  Richard's 
Almanac  for  1753,  written  probably  by  Franklin, 
begins  as  follows :  "  It  has  pleased  God  in  his 
Goodness  to  Mankind,  at  length  to  discover  to 
them  the  Means  of  securing  their  Habitations 
and  other  Buildings  from  Mischief  by  Thunder 
and  Lightning." 

Franklin  bore  his  honors  with  the  most  re- 
markable modesty.  It  was  in  June  that  he  flew 
his  first  kite,  but  not  until  October  that  he  sent 
to  Mr.  Collinson  an  account  of  the  experiment, 
and  even  then  he  described  the  manner  of  making 
and  flying  the  kite  and  omitted  all  reference  to 
his  own  success  with  it.    The  identity  of  lightning 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  29 

with  electricity  having  been  established  by  M. 
Dalibard,  he  deemed  it  unnecessary  to  forward 
the  account  of  an  experiment  which,  however 
brilliant,  he  thought  superfluous.  Accordingly, 
we  have  no  narrative  by  Franklin  of  the  flying 
of  the  kite.  We  owe  our  knowledge  of  what 
occurred  on  that  memorable  afternoon  to  per- 
sons who  heard  Franklin  tell  the  story.  Frank- 
lin prefaces  his  description  of  his  kite  with  these 
words  :  "  As  frequent  mention  is  made  in  public 
papers  from  Europe  of  the  success  of  the  Phila- 
delphia experiment  for  drawing  the  electric  fire 
from  clouds  by  means  of  pointed  rods  of  iron 
erected  on  high  buildings,  it  may  be  agreeable 
to  the  curious  to  be  informed  that  the  same 
experiment  has  succeeded  in  Philadelphia, 
though  made  in  a  different  and  more  easy  man- 
ner, which  is  as  follows."  And  then  we  have 
the  description  of  the  kite,  the  letter  ending 
without  reference  to  what  he  himself  had  done 
with  it. 

Yet  he  was  far  from  hiding  the  pleasure  his 
fame  brought  him.  "  The  TatlerJ'  he  wrote,  in 
i753j  to  a  friend,  "  tells  us  of  a  girl  who  was  ob- 
served to  grow  suddenly  proud,  and  none  could 
guess  the  reason,  till  it  came  to  be  known  that 
she  had  got  on  a  pair  of  new  silk  garters.  Lest 
you  should  be  puzzled  to  guess  the  cause,  when 
you  observe  anything  of  the  kind  in  me,  I  think  I 
will  not  hide  my  new  garters  under  my  petti- 
coats, but  take  the  freedom  to  show  them  to  you 
in  a  paragraph  of  our  friend  Collinson's  last 
letter,  viz. — But  I  ought  to  mortify,  and  not  in- 


30  INVENTORS 

dulge,  this  vanity  ;  I  will  not  transcribe  the  para- 
graph— yet  I  cannot  forbear."  Then  he  quotes 
the  paragraph,  which  mentions  the  honors  done 
him  by  the  King  of  France  and  the  Royal  Society. 

For  twenty  years  Franklin  continued  to  work  at 
electricity,  devoting  most  of  his  leisure  to  his  be- 
loved study.  The  great  practical  value  of  the 
lightning-rod,  at  one  time  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century  somewhat  exaggerated,  as  a  perfect  pro- 
tection against  harm  by  lightning,  just  as  electric- 
ity was  at  one  time  heralded  as  a  panacea  for  all 
bodily  ailments,  has  of  late  years  been  questioned, 
but  the  consensus  of  scientific  opinion  still  attrib- 
utes much  merit  to  the  device,  and  the  extent  of 
Franklin's  services  to  science  in  the  matter  can- 
not be  called  into  doubt.  Others  have  claimed 
his  discoveries.  The  Abbe  Nolet,  of  France,  has 
been  credited  as  being  the  first  to  note  the  simi- 
larity between  electricity  and  lightning ;  and  M. 
Romas,  of  Nerac,  France,  is  said  to  have  used  a 
kite  with  a  copper  wire  wound  around  the 
string,  to  attract  electricity  from  clouds,  some 
time  before  Franklin  made  his  experiment.  But 
posterity  has  ignored  these  claimants,  and  Frank- 
lin had  the  happiness  of  escaping  bitter  conten- 
tions with  rivals.  In  fact,  there  could  hardly 
have  been  a  quarrel  with  a  man  who  claimed 
nothing,  who  mentioned  with  honor  everybody's 
achievements  but  his  own,  and  who  recorded 
his  most  brilliant  observations  in  the  plural,  as 
though  he  were  but  one  of  a  band  of  investigat- 
ing Philadelphians. 

Passing  now  to  Franklin's  connection  with  the 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  31 

use  of  oil  to  still  dangerous  waves,  I  had  occa- 
sion recently  to  note  that  Lieutenant  W.  H. 
Beehler,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  in  writing 
upon  the  matter,  quotes  Franklin's  explanation 
of  why  oil  works  so  beneficently  as  the  accepted 
theory.  Franklin  was  greatly  interested,  when 
at  sea,  in  studying  the  matter.  Any  phenome- 
non that  puzzled  him  was  fit  subject  for  investi- 
gation. Let  us  see  how  he  went  about  the  in- 
quiry. "In  1757,"  he  wrote,  "  being  at  sea  in  a 
fleet  of  ninety-six  sail  bound  against  Louisburg, 
I  observed  the  wakes  of  two  of  the  ships  to  be 
remarkably  smooth,  while  all  the  others  were 
ruffled  by  the  wind  which  blew  fresh.  Being 
puzzled  with  the  differing  appearance,  I  at  last 
pointed  it  out  to  our  captain  and  asked  him  the 
meaning  of  it.  '  The  cooks,'  says  he,  *  have,  1 
suppose,  been  just  emptying  their  greasy  water 
through  the  scuppers,  which  has  greased  the 
sides  of  those  ships  a  little ;'  and  this  answer  he 
gave  me  with  an  air  of  some  little  contempt,  as 
to  a  person  ignorant  of  what  everybody  else 
knew.  In  my  own  mind  I  at  first  slighted  his 
solution,  though  I  was  not  able  to  think  of  an- 
other; but  recollecting  what  I  had  formerly 
read  in  Pliny,  I  resolved  to  make  some  experi- 
ment of  the  effect  of  oil  on  water,  when  I  should 
have  opportunity.  Afterwards,  being  again 
at  sea  in  1762,  I  first  observed  the  wonderful 
quietness  of  oil  on  agitated  water,  in  the  swing- 
ing glass  lamp  I  made  to  hang  up  in  the  cabin, 
as  described  in  my  printed  papers.  This  I  was 
continually  looking  at  and  considering,  as  an  ap- 


32  INVENTORS 

pearance  to  me  inexplicable.  An  old  sea  cap- 
tain, then  a  passenger  with  me,  thought  little  of 
it,  supposing  it  an  effect  of  the  same  kind  with 
that  of  oil  put  on  water  to  smooth  it,  which  he 
said  was  a  practice  of  the  Bermudians  when  they 
would  strike  fish,  which  they  could  not  see  if 
the  surface  of  the  water  was  ruffled  by  the  wind. 
The  same  gentleman  told  me  he  had  heard  it 
was  a  practice  with  the  fishermen  of  Lisbon, 
when  about  to  return  into  the  river  (if  they  saw 
before  them  too  great  a  surf  upon  the  bar,  which 
they  apprehended  might  fill  their  boats  in  pass- 
ing) to  empty  a  bottle  or  two  of  oil  into  the  sea, 
which  would  suppress  the  breakers,  and  allow 
them  to  pass  safely.  A  confirmation  of  this  I 
have  not  since  had  an  opportunity  of  obtaining  ; 
but  discoursing  of  it  with  another  person,  who 
had  often  been  in  the  Mediterranean,  I  was  in- 
formed that  the  divers  there,  who,  when  under 
water  in  their  business,  need  light,  which  the 
curling  of  the  surface  interrupts  by  the  refrac- 
tions of  so  many  little  waves,  let  a  small  quantity 
of  oil  now  and  then  out  of  their  mouths,  which 
rising  to  the  surface  smooths  it,  and  permits  the 
light  to  come  down  to  them.  All  these  infor- 
mations I  at  times  resolved  in  my  mind,  and 
wondered  to  find  no  mention  of  them  in  our 
books  of  experimental  philosophy. 

"  At  length  being  at  Clapham  where  there  is, 
on  the  common,  a  large  pond,  which  I  observed 
one  day  to  be  very  rough  with  the  wind,  I 
fetched  out  a  cruet  of  oil  and  dropped  a  little  of 
it  on  the  water.     I  saw  it  spread  itself  with  sur- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  33 

prising-  swiftness  upon  the  surface ;  but  the  effect 
of  smoothing  the  waves  was  not  produced ;  for 
I  had  applied  it  first  on  the  leeward  side  of  the 
pond,  where  the  waves  were  largest,  and  the 
wind  drove  my  oil  back  upon  the  shore,  I  then 
went  to  the  windward  side,  where  they  began 
to  form  ;  and  there  the  oil,  though  not  more 
than  a  teaspoonful,  produced  an  instant  calm 
over  a  space  several  yards  square,  which  spread 
amazingly,  and  extended  itself  gradually,  till  it 
reached  the  lee  side,  making  all  that  quarter  of 
the  pond,  perhaps  half  an  acre,  as  smooth  as  a 
looking  glass. 

"  A  gentleman  from  Rhode  Island  told  me  it 
had  been  remarked  that  the  harbor  of  Newport 
was  ever  smooth  while  any  whaling  vessels  were 
in  it ;  which  probably  arose  from  hence,  that 
the  blubber,  which  they  sometimes  bring  loose 
in  the  hold,  or  the  leakage  of  their  barrels, 
might  afford  some  oil  to  mix  with  that  water, 
which,  from  time  to  time,  they  pump  out  to  keep 
their  vessel  free,  and  that  some  oil  might  spread 
over  the  surface  of  the  water  in  the  harbor  and 
prevent  the  forming  of  any  waves." 

Thus  Franklin  collected  his  facts,  taking  them 
far  and  near,  and  from  anybody  and  everybody. 
By  dint  of  observation  and  reflection  he  finally 
solved  the  problem,  arriving  at  the  conclusion 
that  ''  the  wind  blowing  over  water  thus  covered 
with  a  film  of  oil,  cannot  easily  catch  upon  it,  so 
as  to  raise  the  first  wrinkles,  but  slides  over  it, 
and  leaves  it  smooth  as  it  finds  it." 

Another  remarkable  instance  of  Franklin's  pas- 
3 


34  INVENTORS 

sion  for  investigation  is  afforded  in  the  following 
interesting  letter  to  Sir  John  Pringle  :  ''  When 
we  were  travelling  together  in  Holland,  you  re- 
marked that  the  canal  boat  in  one  of  the  stages 
went  slower  than  usual,  and  inquired  of  the  boat- 
man what  might  be  the  reason ;  who  answered 
that  it  had  been  a  dry  season,  and  the  water  in 
the  canal  was  low.  On  being  asked  if  it  was  so 
low  that  the  boat  touched  the  muddy  bottom, 
he  said  no,  not  so  low  as  that,  but  so  low  as  to 
make  it  harder  for  the  horse  to  draw  the  boat. 
We  neither  of  us  at  first  could  conceive  that,  if 
there  was  water  enough  for  the  boat  to  swim 
clear  of  the  bottom,  its  being  deeper  would  make 
any  difference.  But  as  the  man  affirmed  it  seri- 
ously as  a  thing  well  known  among  them,  and 
as  the  punctuality  required  in  their  stages  was 
likely  to  make  such  difference,  if  any  there  were, 
more  readily  observed  by  them  than  by  other 
watermen  who  did  not  pass  so  regularly  and  con- 
stantly backwards  and  forwards  in  the  same 
track,  I  began  to  apprehend  there  might  be 
something  in  it,  and  attempted  to  account  for  it 
from  this  consideration,  that  the  boat  in  proceed- 
ing along  the  canal  must,  in  every  boat's  length 
of  her  course,  move  out  of  her  way  a  body  of 
water  equal  in  bulk  to  the  room  her  bottom  took 
up  in  the  water ;  that  the  water  so  moved  must 
pass  on  each  side  of  her,  and  under  her  bottom,  to 
get  behind  her ;  that  if  the  passage  under  her 
bottom  was  straitened  by  the  shallows,  more  of 
the  water  must  pass  by  her  sides,  and  with  a 
swifter  motion,  which  wpuld  retard  her,  as  mov- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  35 

ing  the  contrary  way  ;  or  that,  the  water  becom- 
ing lower  behind  the  boat  than  before,  she  was 
pressed  back  by  the  weight  of  its  difference  in 
hight,  and  her  motion  retarded  by  having  that 
weight  constantly  to  overcome.  But,  as  it  is  of- 
ten lost  time  to  attempt  accounting  for  uncertain 
facts,  I  determined  to  make  an  experiment  of 
this,  when  I  should  have  convenient  time  and 
opportunity. 

"  After  our  return  to  England,  as  often  as  I 
happened  to  be  on  the  Thames,  I  enquired  of  our 
watermen  whether  they  were  sensible  of  any 
difference  in  rowing  over  shallow  or  deep  water. 
I  found  them  all  agreeing  in  the  fact  that  there 
was  a  very  great  difference,  but  they  differed 
widely  in  expressing  the  quantity  of  the  differ- 
ence ;  some  supposing  it  was  equal  to  a  mile  in 
six,  others  to  a  mile  in  three.  As  I  did  not  rec- 
ollect to  have  met  with  any  mention  of  this 
matter  in  our  philosophical  books,  and  conceiv- 
ing that,  if  the  difference  should  be  really  great, 
it  might  be  an  object  of  consideration  in  the 
many  projects  now  on  foot  for  digging  new 
navigable  canals  in  this  island,  I  lately  put  my 
design  of  making  the  experiment  in  execution, 
in  the  following  manner. 

"  I  provided  a  trough  of  planed  boards  fourteen 
feet  long,  six  inches  wide,  and  six  inches  deep  in 
the  clear,  filled  with  water  within  half  an  inch  of 
the  edge,  to  represent  a  canal.  I  had  a  loose 
board  of  nearly  the  same  length  and  breadth, 
that  being  put  into  the  water,  might  be  sunk  to 
any  depth,  and  fixed  by  little  wedges  where  I 


36  INVENTORS 

would  choose  to  have  it  stay,  in  order  to  make 
different  depths  of  water,  leaving  the  surface  at 
the  same  hight  with  regard  to  the  sides  of  the 
trough.  1  had  a  little  boat  in  form  of  a  lighter 
or  boat  of  burden,  six  inches  long,  two  inches 
and  a  quarter  wide,  and  one  inch  and  a  quarter 
deep.  When  swimming  it  drew  one  inch  of 
water.  To  give  motion  to  the  boat,  I  fixed  one 
end  of  a  long  silk  thread  to  its  bow,  just  even 
with  the  water's  edge,  the  other  end  passed  over 
a  well-made  brass  pulley,  of  about  an  inch  in 
diameter,  turning  freely  upon  a  small  axis ;  and 
a  shilling  was  the  weight.  Then  placing  the 
boat  at  one  end  of  the  trough,  the  weight  would 
draw  it  through  the  water  to  the  other.  Not 
having  a  watch  that  shows  seconds,  in  order  to 
measure  the  time  taken  up  by  the  boat  in  passing 
from  end  to  end  of  the  trough,  I  counted  as  fast 
as  I  could  count  to  ten  repeatedly,  keeping  an 
account  of  the  number  of  tens  on  my  fingers. 
And,  as  much  as  possible  to  correct  any  little  in- 
equalities in  my  counting,  I  repeated  the  experi- 
ment a  number  of  times  at  each  depth  of  water, 
that  I  might  take  the  medium." 

The  experiment  proved  the  truth  of  the 
boatmen's  assertions.  Franklin  found  that  five 
horses  would  be  required  to  draw  a  boat  in  a 
canal  affording  little  more  than  enough  water  to 
float  it,  which  four  horses  could  draw  in  a  canal 
of  the  proper  depth. 

No  circumstance,  remarks  Mr.  Parton,  was 
too  trifling  to  engage  him  upon  a  series  of  exper- 
iments.    At  dinner,  one  day,  a  bottle  of  Madeira 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  37 

was  opened  which  had  been  bottled  in  Virginia 
many  months  before.  Into  the  first  glass  poured 
from  it  fell  three  drowned  flies.  "  Having  heard 
it  remarked  that  drowned  flies  were  capable  of 
being  revived  by  the  rays  of  the  sun,  I  proposed 
making  the  experiment  upon  these ;  they  were 
therefore  exposed  to  the  sun  upon  a  sieve  which 
had  been  employed  to  strain  them  out  of  the 
wine.  In  less  than  three  hours  two  of  them  be- 
gan by  degrees  to  recover  life.  They  com- 
menced by  some  convulsive  motions  of  the 
thighs,  and  at  length  they  raised  themselves 
upon  their  legs,  wiped  their  eyes  with  their  fore- 
feet, beat  and  brushed  their  wings  with  their 
hind  feet,  and  soon  after  began  to  fly,  finding 
themselves  in  Old  England  without  knowing 
how  they  came  thither.  The  third  continued 
lifeless  till  sunset,  when,  losing  all  hopes  of  him, 
he  was  thrown  away."  And  upon  this  he  re- 
marks :  ''  I  wish  it  were  possible,  from  this  in- 
stance, to  invent  a  method  of  enbalming  drowned 
persons  in  such  a  manner  that  they  may  be  re- 
called to  life  at  any  period,  however  distant ;  for 
having  a  very  ardent  desire  to  see  and  observe 
the  state  of  America  a  hundred  years  hence,  I 
should  prefer  to  any  ordinary  death  being  im- 
mersed in  a  cask  of  Madeira  wine,  with  a  few 
friends,  till  that  time,  to  be  then  recalled  to  life 
by  the  solar  warmth  of  my  dear  country." 

Among  the  studies  in  natural  philosophy  of 
which  but  little  is  known  to  the  general  pub- 
lic may  be  mentioned  Franklin's  experiments 
with  heat  at  a  time  when  a  thermometer  was  a 


38  INVENTORS 

scientific  curiosity.  The  manner  in  which  he 
proved  that  black  cloth  was  not  so  good  a  cov- 
ering for  the  body  in  hot  weather  as  white, 
shows  the  simplicity  of  his  methods  and  his 
faculty  for  making  small  means  subserve  great 
ends  :  "  I  took  a  number  of  little  square  pieces 
of  broadcloth  from  a  tailor's  pattern-card,  of 
various  colors.  There  were  black,  deep  blue, 
lighter  blue,  green,  purple,  red,  yellow,  white, 
and  other  colors  or  shades  of  colors.  I  laid 
them  all  out  upon  the  snow  in  a  bright  sunshiny 
morning.  In  a  few  hours  the  black,  being 
warmed  most  by  the  sun,  was  so  low  as  to  be  be- 
low the  stroke  of  the  sun's  rays ;  the  dark  blue 
almost  as  low,  the  lighter  blue  not  quite  so  much 
as  the  dark,  the  other  colors  less  as  they  were 
lighter,  and  the  quite  white  remained  on  the 
surface  of  the  snow,  not  having  entered  it  at  all. 
What  signifies  philosophy  that  does  not  apply  to 
some  use  ?  May  we  not  learn  from  hence  that 
black  clothes  are  not  so  fit  to  wear  in  a  hot, 
sunny  climate  or  season  as  white  ones?"  That 
all  summer  hats,  particularly  for  soldiers,  should 
be  white,  and  that  garden  walls  intended  for 
fruit  should  be  black,  were  suggestions  put  forth 
as  a  result  of  this  experiment. 

Dr.  Small  assigns  to  Franklin  the  credit  of 
having  discovered  that  repeated  respiration  im- 
parts to  air  a  poisonous  quality  similar  to  that 
which  extinguishes  candles  and  destroys  life 
in  mines  and  wells.  ''  The  doctor,"  he  records, 
"  breathed  gently  through  a  tube  into  a  deep 
glass   mug,  so  as  to   impregnate  all  the  air  in 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  39 

the  mug  with  this  quality.  He  then  put  a 
lighted  bougie  (candle )  into  the  mug,  and  upon 
touching  the  air  therein  the  flame  was  in- 
stantly extinguished ;  by  frequently  repeat- 
ing this  operation,  the  bougie  gradually  pre- 
served its  light  longer  in  the  mug,  so  as  in  a 
short  time  to  retain  it  to  the  bottom  of  it,  the 
air  having  totally  lost  the  bad  quality  it  had 
contracted  from  the  breath  blown  into  it."  Upon 
being  consulted  with  regard  to  the  better  ventil- 
ation of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  advised  that 
openings  should  be  made  near  the  ceiling,  com- 
municating with  flues  running  parallel  with  the 
chimneys  and  close  enough  to  them  to  be  kept 
warm  by  their  heat.  These  flues,  he  recom- 
mended, should  begin  in  the  cellar,  where  the 
air  was  cool,  and  the  flues  being  warmed  by  the 
hot  air  of  the  chimneys,  would  cause  an  up- 
ward current  of  air  strong  enough  to  expel  the 
vitiated  air  in  the  upper  part  of  the  house. 
Franklin's  letters  at  this  time  are  full  of  the 
importance  of  ventilation.  Unquestionably,  he 
was  among  the  first  who  called  attention  to 
the  folly  of  excluding  fresh  air  from  hospitals 
and  sick-rooms,  particularly  those  of  fever  pa- 
tients. As  Mr.  Parton  expresses  it,  he  cleared 
the  pure  air  of  heaven  from  calumnious  imputa- 
tion and  threw  open  the  windows  of  mankind. 

Some  inventions  of  Franklin's  have  not  met 
with  the  approval  of  posterity.  For  instance,  he 
seems  to  have  had  no  more  success  with  a  re- 
formed spelling  of  his  own  devising  than  laborers 
in  the  same  field  who  came  after  him.      He  used 


40  INVENTORS 

to  say  that  they  alone  spelt  well  who  spelt  ill, 
since  the  so-called  bad  speller  used  the  letters 
according  to  their  real  value.  The  illiterate 
girl  who  wrote  of  her  bo  was  more  correct,  he 
thought,  than  the  young  lady  who  would  blush 
to  omit  a  superfluous  vowel.  What  was  the  use 
of  the  final  letter  in  muff,  and  why  take  the 
trouble  to  write  tough  when  tuf  would  do  as 
well  ?  Had  he  lived  to  see  Dr.  Webster's 
Dictionary,  the  lexicographer  would  have  found 
in  him  an  ardent  champion.  His  reformed  al- 
phabet and  spelling  is  an  interesting  curiosity, 
but  hardly  more.  Some  letters  of  our  alpha- 
bet he  omitted,  only  to  add  new  ones.  He  also 
changed  their  order,  making  o  the  first  letter  and 
m  the  last.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  well  to 
say  that  Franklin  was  perhaps  the  first  and  fore- 
most American  champion  of  the  movement, 
no-w  so  powerful,  looking  to  the  displacement  of 
Latin  and  Greek  as  the  foundations  of  education. 
At  the  very  close  of  his  life,  in  1789,  he  issued 
his  famous  protest  against  the  study  of  dead  lan- 
guages. He  is  reported  to  have  said  one  even- 
ing, when  talking  about  this  matter:  "When 
the  custom  of  wearing  broad  cuffs  with  buttons 
first  began,  there  was  a  reason  for  it ;  the  cuffs 
might  be  brought  down  over  the  hands  and  thus 
guard  them  from  wet  and  cold.  But  gloves  came 
into  use,  and  the  broad  cuffs  were  unnecessary  ; 
yet  the  custom  was  still  retained.  So  likewise 
with  cocked  hats.  The  wide  brim,  when  let 
down,  afforded  a  protection  from  the  rain  and 
the  sun.      Umbrellas  Avere  introduced,  yet  fash- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  41 

ion  prevailed  to  keep  cocked  hats  in  vogue, 
although  they  v^ere  rather  cumbersome  than 
useful.  Thus  with  the  Latin  language.  When 
nearly  all  the  books  of  Europe  were  written 
in  that  language,  the  study  of  it  was  essential  in 
every  system  of  education  ;  but  it  is  now  scarcely 
needed,  except  as  an  accomplishment,  since  it 
has  everywhere  given  place,  as  a  vehicle  of 
thought  and  knowledge,  to  some  one  of  the 
modern  tongues." 

With  all  his  love  of  the  practical,  Franklin  was 
not  deficient  in  a  rather  delicate  wit.  I  have  al- 
ready had  occasion  to  quote  at  the  beginning  of 
this  paper  his  disclaimer  of  the  honors  conferred 
upon  him  by  Turgot's  famous  Latin  line.  In- 
stances of  this  dry  humor  may  be  found  all 
through  Sparks's  exhaustive  biography.  I  re- 
member one  in.  particular.  The  merchants  of 
Philadelphia,  being  at  one  time  desirous  to  es- 
tablish an  assembly  for  dancing,  they  drew  up 
some  rules,  among  which  was  one  ''  that  no  me- 
chanic or  mechanic's  wife  or  daughter  should  be 
admitted  on  any  terms."  This  rule  being  sub- 
mitted to  Franklin,  he  remarked  that  "it  excluded 
God  Almighty,  for  he  was  the  greatest  mechanic 
in  the  universe." 

Benjamin  Franklin's  services  to  the  cause  of 
invention  by  no  means  ended  with  his  own  in- 
ventions. One  of  his  greatest  services  was  the 
part  he  took  in  the  foundation  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society,  whose  object  was  to  bring 
into  correspondence  with  a  central  association 
in  Philadelphia  all  scientists,  philosophers,  and 


42  INVENTORS 

inventors  on  this  continent  and  in  Europe. 
Franklin's  share  in  the  foundation  of  this  soci- 
ety, which  has  proved  of  such  vast  use,  seems 
to  have  been  largely  overlooked  by  his  biogra- 
phers. Mr.  Parton,  having  mentioned  that  Frank- 
lin founded  the  society  in  accordance  with  his 
proposal  of  1743,  adds  :  "  The  society  was  formed 
and  continued  in  existence  for  some  years. 
Nevertheless,  its  success  was  neither  great  nor 
permanent,  for  at  that  day  the  circle  of  men  ca- 
pable of  taking  much  interest  in  science  was  too 
limited  for  the  proper  support  of  such  an  organi- 
zation." The  recent  historian  of  the  society, 
Dr.  Robert  M.  Patterson,  agrees,  however,  with 
Sparks  in  tracing  the  origin  of  the  Philosophi- 
cal Society,  which  grew  into  prominence  about 
1767,  back  to  Franklin's  proposal  of  1743.  After 
describing  the  Junto,  or  Leather  Apron  Society, 
formed  among  Franklin's  acquaintance,  a  sort  of 
debating  club  of  eleven  young  men.  Sparks  says : 
''  Forty  years  after  its  establishment  it  became 
the  basis  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society, 
of  which  Franklin  was  the  first  president,  and 
the  published  transactions  of  which  have  con- 
tributed to  the  advancement  of  science  and  the 
diffusion  of  valuable  knowledge  in  the  United 
States."  In  his  first  proposal  Franklin  gave  a 
list  of  the  subjects  that  were  to  engage  the  at- 
tention of  these  New  World  philosophers.  It  in- 
cluded investigations  in  botany  ;  in  medicine ;  in 
mineralogy  and  mining ;  in  chemistry  ;  in  me- 
chanics ;  in  arts,  trades,  and  manufactures ;  in 
geography  and  topography  ;  in  agriculture  ;  and, 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 


43 


lest  something  should  have  been  forgotten,  he 
adds  that  the  association  should  "  give  its  atten- 
tion to  all  philosophical  experiments  that  let 
light  into  the  nature  of  things,  tend  to  increase 
the  power  of  man  over  matter  and  multiply  the 


F  an^l  n  s  Grave 


conveniences  or  pleasures  of  life."  The  duties 
of  the  secretary  of  the  society  were  laid  down 
and  were  arduous,  including  much  foreign  corre- 
spondence, in  addition  to  the  correcting,  abstract- 
ing, and  methodizing  of  such  papers  as  required 
it.     This  ofhce  Franklin  took  upon  himself. 

While  he  lived  the  proceedings  of  the  society 
scarcely  ever  failed  of  a  useful  end.     Unlike  so 


44  INVENTORS 

many  original  and  inventive  geniuses,  his  emi- 
nent common  sense  was  as  marked  as  his  origi- 
nality. In  the  language  of  his  most  recent  bi- 
ographer, John  Bach  McMaster,  *'  whatever 
he  has  said  on  domestic  economy  or  thrift  is 
sound  and  striking.  No  other  writer  has  left  so 
many  just  and  original  observations  on  success 
in  life.  No  other  writer  has  pointed  out  so 
clearly  the  way  to  obtain  the  greatest  amount  of 
comfort  out  of  life.  What  Solomon  did  for  the 
spiritual  man,  that  did  Franklin  for  the  earthly 
man.  The  book  of  Proverbs  is  a  collection  of 
receipts  for  laying  up  treasure  in  heaven.  '  Poor 
Richard'  is  a  collection  of  receipts  for  laying  up 
treasure  on  earth." 


n. 

ROBERT  FULTON. 

Robert  Fulton,  the  inventor  of  the  steam- 
boat, or  at  least  the  first  man  to  apply  the  power 
of  the  steam-engine  to  the  propulsion  of  boats  in  a 
practical  and  effective  manner,  was  born  in  Little 
Britain,  Lancaster  County,  Pa.,  1765,  of  respect- 
able but  poor  parents.  His  father  was  a  native  of 
Kilkenny,  Ireland,  and  his  mother  came  of  a  fairly 
well-to-do  Irish  family,  settled  in  Pennsylvania. 
He  was  the  third  of  five  children.  As  a  child  he 
received  the  rudiments  of  a  common  education. 
His  vocation  showed  itself  in  his  earliest  years. 
All  his  hours  of  recreation  were  passed  in  shops 
and  in  drawing.  At  the  time  he  was  seventeen 
he  had  become  so  much  of  an  artist  as  to  make 
money  by  portrait  and  landscape  painting  in 
Philadelphia,  where  he  remained  until  he  was 
twenty-one.  After  this  he  went  to  Washington 
County  and  there  purchased  a  little  farm  on 
which  he  settled  liis  mother,  his  father  having 
died  when  he  was  three  years  old.  He  returned 
to  Philadelphia,  but  on  his  way  visited  the  Warm 
Springs  of  Pennsylvania,  where  he  met  with 
some  gentlemen  who  were  so  much  pleased  with 
his  painting  that  they  advised  him  to  go  to  Eng- 
land, where  they  told  him  he  would  meet  with 


/.  ^ 


Robert  Fulton. 


ROBERT  FULTON  47 

West  who  had  then  attained  great  celebrity. 
Fulton  took  this  advice,  and  his  reception  by 
West,  always  kindly  toward  Americans,  was 
such  as  he  had  been  led  to  expect.  The  dis- 
tinguished painter  was  so  well  pleased  with  him 
that  he  took  him  into  his  house,  where  he  con- 
tinued to  live  for  several  years.  For  some  time 
Fulton  made  painting  his  chief  employment, 
spending  two  years  in  Devonshire,  near  Exeter, 
where  he  made  many  influential  acquaintances, 
among  others  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater,  famous 
for  his  canals,  and  Lord  Stanhope,  a  nobleman 
noted  for  his  love  of  science  and  his  attachment 
to  the  mechanic  arts.  With  Lord  Stanhope,  Ful- 
ton held  a  correspondence  for  a  long  time  upon 
subjects  in  which  they  were  interested. 

In  1793,  Fulton  was  engaged  in  a  project  to 
improve  inland  navigation.  Even  at  that  early 
day  it  appeared  that  he  had  conceived  the  idea 
of  propelling  vessels  by  steam,  and  he  speaks  in 
his  letters  of  its  practicability.  In  1794  he  ob- 
tained from  the  British  Government  a  patent  for 
improvements  in  canal  locks,  and  his  pursuits  at 
this  time  appear  to  have  been  in  this  direction. 
In  his  preface  to  a  description  of  his  Nautilus,  or 
"  plunging "  boat,  a  species  of  submarine  boat, 
he  says  that  he  had  resided  eighteen  months  in 
Birmingham  where  he  acquired  much  of  his 
knowledge  of  mechanics.  In  later  years,  when 
in  Paris,  Fulton  sent  a  large  collection  of  his 
manuscripts  to  this  country.  Unfortunately,  the 
vessel  in  which  they  were  sent  was  wrecked, 
and,  while  the  case  was  recovered,  only  a  few 


48 


lyVEXTOFcS 


fragments  of  the  manuscripts  could  be  used.  It 
is  owing  to  this  misfortune  that  we  have  so  few 
records  of  Fulton's  work  at  this  time. 

We  know,  however,  that  in  1794  he  submitted 
to  the  British  Societv  for  the  Promotion  of  Arts 
and  Commerce  an  improvement  of  his  invention 
for  sawing  marble,  for   which  he    received  the 


Birthplace  of  Rooert  Fulton* 


thanks  of  the  society  and  an  honorarv  medal. 
Reinvented  also,  it  is  thought,  about  this  time,  a 
machine  for  spinning  flax  and  another  for  mak- 
ing ropes,  for  both  of  which  he  obtained  patents 
from  the  British  Government.  A  mechanical 
contrivance  for  scooping  out  earth  to  form  chan- 
nels for  canals  or  aqueducts,  which  is  said  to  have 

*  This  illustration  and  the  four  following  are  from  Knox's  "  Life 
of  Fulton,"  reproduced  by  permission  of  the  publishers,  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons. 


ROBERT  FULTON  49 

been  much  used  in  England^  was  also  his  inven- 
tion. The  subject  of  canals  appears  to  have 
chiefly  engaged  his  attention  during  these  years 
of  the  end  of  the  century.  He  called  himself  a 
civil  engineer,  and  under  this  title  published  his 
work  on  canals,  and,  in  1795,  many  essays  on  the 
same  subject  in  one  of  the  London  journals.  He 
recommended  small  canals  and  boats  of  little 
burden  in  a  treatise  on  "  Improvement  of  Canal 
Navigation,"  and  inclined  planes  instead  of  locks, 
as  a  means  of  transporting  canal  boats  from  one 
level  to  another.  His  plans  were  strongly  rec- 
ommended by  the  British  Board  of  Agricult- 
ure. Throughout  his  course  as  civil  engineer 
his  talent  for  drawing  was  of  great  advantage  to 
him,  and  the  plates  annexed  to  his  works  are  ad- 
mirable examples  of  such  work.  He  seems  to 
have  neglected  his  painting  till  a  short  time  be- 
fore his  death,  when  he  took  up  the  brush  again 
to  paint  some  portraits  of  his  family.  During 
his  residence  in  England  he  sent  copies  of  his 
works  to  distinguished  men  in  this  country, 
setting  forth  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
communication  by  canals. 

Having  obtained  a  patent  for  mill  improve- 
ments from  the  British  Government,  he  went  to 
France  with  the  intention  of  introducing  his  in- 
vention there ;  but,  not  meeting  with  much  en- 
couragement, he  devoted  his  time  to  other 
matters.  Political  economy  had  also  some  at- 
traction for  him,  and  he  wrote  a  book  to  show 
that  internal  improvements  would  have  a  good 
effect  on  the  happiness  of  a  nation.  He  not  only 
4 


50  INVENTORS 

wished  to  see  a  free  and  speedy  communication 
between  the  different  parts  of  a  large  country, 
but  universal  free  trade  between  all  countries. 
He  thought  that  it  would  take  ages  to  establish 
the  freedom  of  the  seas  by  the  common  consent 
of  nations,  and  believed  in  destroying  ships  of 
war,  so  as  to  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  any  na- 
tion to  control  ocean  trade.  In  1797  he  became 
acquainted  with  Joel  Barlow,  the  well-known 
American,  then  residing  in  Paris,  in  whose  family 
he  lived  for  seven  years,  during  which  time  he 
learned  French  and  something  of  German,  and 
studied  mathematics  and  chemistry.  In  the  same 
year  he  made  an  experiment  with  Mr.  Barlow  on 
the  Seine  with  a  machine  he  had  constructed  to 
give  packages  of  gunpowder  a  progressive  mo- 
tion under  water  and  then  to  explode  at  a  given 
point.  These  experiments  appear  to  have  been 
the  first  in  the  line  of  his  submarine  boats,  and 
are  unquestionably  the  germ  of  all  subsequent 
inventions  in  the  direction  of  torpedo  warfare. 

Want  of  money  to  carry  out  his  designs  in- 
duced him  to  apply  to  the  French  Directory, 
who  at  first  gave  him  reason  to  expect  their  aid, 
but  finally  rejected  his  plan.  Fulton,  however, 
was  not  to  be  discouraged,  but  went  on  with  his 
inventions,  and  having  made  a  handsome  model 
of  his  machine  for  destroying  ships,  a  commis- 
sion was  appointed  to  examine  his  plans,  but 
they  also  rejected  them.  He  offered  his  idea  to 
the  British  Government,  still  again  without  suc- 
cess, although  a  committee  was  appointed  to  ex- 
amine   his   models.      The  French    Government 


ROBERT  FULTON  51 

being  changed,  and  Bonaparte  having  come  to 
the  head  of  it,  Fulton  presented  an  address  to 
him.  A  commission  was  appointed,  and  some  as- 
sistance given  which  enabled  him  to  put  some  of 
his  plans  into  practice.  In  the  spring  of  1801 
he  went  to  Brest  to  make  experiments  with  the 
plunging  boat  that  he  had  constructed  in  the  win- 
ter. This,  as  he  says,  had  many  imperfections, 
to  be  expected  in  a  first  machine,  and  had  been 
injured  by  rust,  as  parts  which  should  have  been 
of  copper  or  brass  were  made  of  iron. 

Notwithstanding  these  disadvantages,  he  en- 
gaged in  a  course  of  experiments  which  required 
no  less  courage  than  perseverance.  From  a  re- 
port of  his  proceedings  to  the  committee  ap- 
pointed by  the  French  Government  we  learn  that 
in  July,  1 801,  he  embarked  with  three  compan- 
ions on  board  of  this  boat,  in  the  harbor  of 
Brest,  and  descended  to  the  depth  of  twenty-five 
feet,  remaining  below  the  surface  an  hour,  in 
utter  darkness,  as  the  candles  were  found  to  con- 
sume too  much  of  the  vital  air.  He  placed  two 
men  at  the  engine,  which  was  intended  to  give 
her  motion,  and  one  at  the  helm,  while  he,  with 
a  barometer  before  him,  kept  her  balanced  be- 
tween the  upper  and  lower  waters.  He  could 
turn  her  round  while  under  the  water,  and  found 
that  in  seven  minutes  he  had  gone  about  a  third 
of  a  mile.  During  that  summer  Fulton  de- 
scended under  water  with  a  store  of  air  com- 
pressed into  a  copper  globe,  whereby  he  was 
enabled  to  remain  under  water  four  hours  and 
twenty  minutes.      The  success  of  these  experi- 


52  INVENTORS 

ments  determined  him  to  try  the  effect  of  his 
invention  on  the  English  war-ships,  then  daily 
near  the  harbor  of  Brest — France  and  England 
being  then  at  war.  He  made  his  own  bombs. 
For  experimental  purposes  a  small  vessel  was 
anchored  in  the  harbor,  and  with  a  bomb  con- 
taining about  twenty  pounds  of  powder,  he  ap- 
proached within  about  two  hundred  yards, 
struck  the  vessel,  and  blew  her  into  atoms.  A 
column  of  water  and  fragments  were  sent  nearly 
one  hundred  feet  into  the  air.  This  experiment 
was  made  in  the  presence  of  the  prefect  of  the 
department  and  a  multitude  of  spectators.  Dur- 
ing the  summer  of  1801  Fulton  tried  to  use  his 
bombs  against  some  of  the  English  vessels,  but 
was  not  successful  in  getting  within  range.  The 
French  Government  refused  to  give  him  further 
encouragement. 

The  English  had  some  information  concerning 
the  attempts  that  their  enemies  were  making, 
and  the  anxiety  expressed  induced  the  British 
Minister  to  communicate  with  Fulton  and  try  to 
secure  to  England  his  services.  In  this  he  was 
successful,  and  Fulton  went  to  London,  where  he 
arrived  in  1804,  and  met  Pitt  and  Lord  Melville. 
When  Mr.  Pitt  first  saw  a  drawing  of  a  torpedo 
with  a  sketch  of  the  mode  of  applying  it,  and 
understood  what  would  be  the  effect  of  the  ex- 
plosion, he  said  that  if  it  were  introduced  into 
practice  it  could  not  fail  to  annihilate  all  navies. 

But  from  the  subsequent  conduct  of  the  Brit- 
ish ministry  it  is  supposed  that  they  never  really 
intended  to  give  Fulton  a  fair  opportunity  to  try 


ROBERT  FULTON 


53 


the  effect  of  his  submarine  engines.  Their  ob- 
ject may  have  been  to  prevent  these  devices 
getting  into  the  hands  of  an  enemy.  Several 
experiments  were  made,  and  some  of  them  were 
failures,  but  on  October  15,  1805,  he  blew  up  a 
strong -built  Danish  brig  of  two  hundred  tons 
burden,  which  had  been  provided  for  the  experi- 
ment and  which  was  anchored  near  the  residence 


Fulton   Blowing  Up   a  Danish  Brig. 


of  Pitt.  The  torpedo  used  on  this  occasion  con- 
tained one  hundred  and  seventy  pounds  of  pow- 
der. In  fifteen  minutes  from  the  time  of  starting 
the  machinery  the  explosion  took  place.  It  lifted 
the  brig  almost  entire  and  broke  her  completely 
in  two  ;  in  one  minute  nothing  was  to  be  seen  of 
her  but  floating  fragments.  Notwithstanding 
the  complete  success  of  this  experiment,  the 
British  ministry  seems  to  have  had  nothing  to  do 
with  Fulton.     The  inventor  was  rather  discour- 


54  INVENTORS 

aged  at  this  lack  of  appreciation  and,  after  some 
further  experiments,  he  sailed  for  New  York  in 
December,  1806. 

In  this  country  Fulton  devoted  himself  at  once 
to  his  projects  of  submarine  warfare  and  steam 
navigation.  So  far  from  being  discouraged  by 
his  failure  to  impress  Europe  with  the  impor- 
tance of  his  torpedoes,  his  confidence  was  un- 
shaken, because  he  saw  that  his  failures  were  to 
be  attributed  to  trivial  errors  that  could  easily 
be  corrected.  He  induced  our  Government  to 
give  him  the  means  of  making  further  experi- 
ments, and  invited  the  magistracy  of  New  York 
and  a  number  of  citizens  to  Governor's  Island 
where  were  the  torpedoes  and  the  machinery 
with  which  his  experiments  were  to  be  made. 
In  July,  1807,  he  blew  up,  in  the  harbor  of  New 
York,  a  large  brig  prepared  for  that  purpose. 
He  also  devised  at  this  time  a  number  of  station- 
ary torpedoes,  really  casks  of  powder,  with  trig- 
gers that  might  be  caught  by  the  keel  of  any 
passing  vessel.  In  March,  18 10,  $5,000  were 
granted  by  Congress  for  further  experiments 
in  submarine  explosions.  The  sloop  of  war, 
Argus,  was  prepared  for  defence  against  the 
torpedoes  after  Fulton  had  explained  his  mode 
of  attack.  This  defence  was  so  complete  that 
Fulton  found  it  impracticable  to  do  anything 
with  his  torpedoes.  Some  experiments  were 
made,  however,  with  a  gun-harpoon  and  cable 
cutter,  and  after  several  attempts  a  fourteen-inch 
cable  was  cut  off  several  feet  below  the  surface 
of  the  water. 


ROBERT  FULTON  55 

Fulton  was,  during  all  these  experiments, 
much  pressed  for  money,  and  apparently  was 
making  no  headway  toward  the  use  of  his  sub- 
marine engines  in  a  profitable  way.  It  was  in  de- 
spair of  getting  our  Government  to  make  an  in- 
vestment in  this  direction  that  he  finally  turned 
to  the  problem  of  navigation  by  steam.  He 
had  the  valuable  co-operation  in  his  new  work 
of  Chancellor  Livingston,  of  New  Jersey,  who, 
while  devoting  much  of  his  own  time  and  means 
to  the  advancement  of  science,  was  fond  of  fos- 
tering the  discoveries  of  others.  He  had  very 
clear  conceptions  of  what  would  be  the  great 
advantages  of  steamboats  on  the  navigable  rivers 
of  the  United  States.  He  had  already,  when  in 
Paris,  applied  himself  at  great  expense  to  con- 
structing vessels  and  machinery  for  that  kind  of 
navigation.  As  early  as  1798  he  believed  that 
he  had  accomplished  his  object,  and  represent 
,ed  to  the  Legislature  of  New  York  that  he  was 
possessed  of  a  mode  of  applying  the  steam-en- 
gine to  a  boat  on  new  and  advantageous  prin- 
ciples ;  but  that  he  was  deterred  from  carrying 
it  into  effect  by  the  uncertainty  of  expensive  ex- 
periments, unless  he  could  be  assured  of  an  ex- 
clusive advantage  should  it  be  successful.  The 
Legislature  in  March,  1798,  passed  an  act  vesting 
him  with  the  exclusive  right  and  privilege  of 
navigating  all  kinds  of  boats  which  might  be 
propelled  by  the  force  of  fire  or  steam  on  all 
the  waters  within  the  territory  of  New  York  for 
the  term  of  twenty  years,  upon  condition  that  he 
should  within  a  twelve-month  build  such  a  boat. 


56 


INVENTORS 


whose   progress   should    not   be  less   than    four 
miles  an  hour. 

Livingston,  as  soon  as  the  act  had  passed,  built 
a  boat  of  about  thirty  tons  burden,  to  be  pro- 


John  Fitch's  Steamboat  at  Philadelphia. 


pelled  by  steam.  Soon  after  he  entered  into  a 
contract  with  Fulton,  by  which  it  was  agreed 
that  a  patent  should  be  taken  out  in  the  United 
States  in  Fulton's  name.  Thus  began  the  prep- 
arations for  the  first  practical  steamboat.  All 
the  experiments  were  paid  for  by  Chancellor  Liv- 
ingston, but  the  work  was  Fulton's.  In  1802,  in 
Paris,  he  began  a  course  of  calculations  upon  the 
resistance  of  water,  upon  the  most  advantageous 
form  of  the  body  to  be  moved,  and  upon  the 
different  means  of  propelling  vessels  which  had 
been  previously  attempted.  After  a  variety  of 
calculations  he  rejected  the   proposed   plan   of 


ROBERT  FULTON 


57 


using  paddles  or  oars,  such  as  those  alread}^ 
used  by  Fitch ;  likewise  that  of  ducks'  feet, 
which  open  as  they  are  pushed  out  and  shut  as 
they  are  drawn  in ;  also  that  of  forcing  water 
out  of  the  stern  of  the  vessel.  He  retained  two 
methods  as  worthy  of  experiment,  namely,  end- 
less chains  with  paddle-boards  upon  them,  and 
the  paddle-wheel.  The  latter  was  found  to  be 
the  most  promising,  and  was  finally  adopted 
after  a  number  of  trials  with  models  on  a  little 
river  which  runs  through  the  village  of  Plom- 
bi^res,  to  which  he  had  retired  in  the  spring  of 
1802,  to  pursue  his  experiments  without  inter- 
ruption. 

It  was  now  determined  to  build  an  experimen- 


Fu (ton's  First  Experiment  with  Paddle-wheels. 


tal  boat,  which  was  completed  in  the  spring  of 
1803  ;  but  when  Fulton  was  on  the  point  of  mak- 
ing an  experiment  with  her,  an  accident  hap- 
pened to  the  boat,  the  woodwork   not   having 


58  INVENTORS 

been  framed  strongly  enough  to  bear  the  weight 
of  the  machinery  and  the  agitation  of  the  river. 
The  accident  did  the  machinery  very  little  in- 
jury ;  but  they  were  obliged  to  build  the  boat  al- 
most entirely  anew.  She  was  completed  in  July  ; 
her  length  was  sixty-six  feet  and  she  was  eight 
feet  wide.  Early  in  August,  Fulton  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  French  National  Institute,  inviting 
the  members  to  witness  a  trial  of  his  boat,  which 
was  made  before  the  members,  and  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  great  multitude  of  Parisians.  The 
experiment  was  entirely  satisfactory  to  Fulton, 
though  the  boat  did  not  move  altogether  with 
as  much  speed  as  he  expected.  But  he  imputed 
her  moving  so  slowly  to  the  extremely  defective 
machinery,  and  to  imperfections  which  were  to 
be  expected  in  the  first  experiment  with  so  com- 
plicated a  machine ;  the  defects  were  such  as 
might  be  easily  remedied. 

Such  entire  confidence  did  he  acquire  from 
this  experiment  that  immediately  afterward 
he  wrote  to  Messrs.  Boulton  &  Watt,  of  Bir- 
mingham, England,  ordering  certain  parts  of  a 
steam-engine  to  be  made  for  him,  and  sent  to 
America.  He  did  not  disclose  to  them  for 
what  purpose  the  engine  was  intended,  but  his 
directions  were  such  as  would  produce  the 
parts  of  an  engine  that  might  be  put  together 
within  a  compass  suited  for  a  boat.  Mr.  Liv- 
ingston had  written  to  his  friends  in  this  coun- 
try, and  through  their  assistance  an  act  was 
passed  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  on  April    5,    1803,    by   which   the   rights 


ROBERT  FULTON  59 

and  exclusive  privileges  of  navigating  all  the 
waters  of  that  State,  by  vessels  propelled  by 
fire  or  steam,  granted  to  Livingston  by  the  Act 
of  1798,  as  already  mentioned,  were  extended  to 
Livingston  and  Fulton,  for  the  term  of  twenty 
years  from  the  date  of  the  new  act.  By  this 
law  the  time  of  producing  proof  of  the  prac- 
ticability of  propelling  by  steam  a  boat  of 
twenty  tons  capacity,  at  the  rate  of  four  miles 
an  hour,  with  and  against  the  ordinary  current 
of  the  Hudson,  was  extended  two  years,  and 
by  a  subsequent  law,  the  time  was  extended  to 
1807. 

Very  soon  after  Fulton's  arrival  in  New  York 
he  began  building  his  first  American  boat. 
While  she  was  constructing,  he  found  that  her 
cost  would  greatly  exceed  his  calculations.  He 
endeavored  to  lessen  the  pressure  on  his  own 
finances  by  offering  one-third  of  the  rights  for  a 
proportionate  contribution  to  the  expense.  It 
was  generally  known  that  he  made  this  offer, 
but  no  one  was  then  willing  to  afford  aid  to  his 
enterprise. 

In  the  spring  of  1807,  Fulton's  first  American 
boat  was  launched  from  the  shipyard  of  Charles 
Brown,  on  the  East  River.  The  engine  from 
England  was  put  on  board,  and  in  August  she 
was  completed,  and  was  moved  by  her  ma- 
chinery from  her  birthplace  to  the  Jersey  shore. 
Livingston  and  Fulton  had  invited  many  of 
their  friends  to  witness  the  first  trial,  among 
them  Dr.  Mitchell  and  Dr.  M'Neven,  to  whom 
we    are    indebted    for    some   account    of   what 


60  INVENTORS 

passed  on  this  occasion.  Nothing  could  exceed 
the  surprise  and  admiration  of  all  who  wit- 
nessed the  experiment.  The  minds  of  the  most 
incredulous  were  changed  in  a  few  minutes. 
Before  the  boat  had  gone  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
the  greatest  unbeliever  must  have  been  con- 
verted. The  man  who,  while  he  looked  on  the 
expensive  machine,  thanked  his  stars  that  he 
had  more  wisdom  than  to  waste  his  money  on 
such  idle  schemes,  changed  his  mind  as  the  boat 
moved  from  the  wharf  and  gained  speed,  and 
his  complacent  expression  gradually  stiffened 
into  one  of  wonder. 

This  boat,  which  was  called  the  Clermont, 
soon  after  made  a  trip  to  Albany.  Fulton  gives 
the  following  account  of  this  voyage  in  a  letter 
to  his  friend,  Mr.  Barlow  : 

"  My  steamboat  voyage  to  Albany  and  back, 
has  turned  out  rather  more  favorable  than  I  had 
calculated.  The  distance  from  New  York  to 
Albany  is  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  ;  I  ran 
it  up  in  thirty-two  hours,  and  down  in  thirty. 
I  had  a  light  breeze  against  me  the  whole  way, 
both  going  and  coming,  and  the  voyage  has  been 
performed  wholly  by  the  power  of  the  steam- 
engine.  I  overtook  many  sloops  and  schooners 
beating  to  windward,  and  parted  with  them  as  if 
they  had  been  at  anchor.  The  power  of  propel- 
ling boats  by  steam  is  now  fully  proved.  The 
morning  I  left  New  York  there  were  not,  perhaps, 
thirty  persons  in  the  city  who  believed  that  the 
boat  would  even  move  one  mile  an  hour,  or  be  of 
the  least  utility  ;   and  while  we  were  putting  off 


ROBERT  FULTON  61 

from  the  wharf,  which  was  crowded  with  specta- 
tors, I  heard  a  number  of  sarcastic  remarks. 
This  is  the  way  in  which  ignorant  men  compli- 
ment what  they  call  philosophers  and  projectors. 
Having  employed  much  time,  money,  and  zeal,  in 
accomplishing  this  work,  it  gives  me,  as  it  will 
you,  great  pleasure  to  see  it  fully  answer  my  ex- 
pectations. It  will  give  a  cheap  and  quick  con- 
veyance to  the  merchandise  on  the  Mississippi, 
Missouri,  and  other  great  rivers,  which  are  now 
laying  open  their  treasures  to  the  enterprise 
of  our  countrymen  ;  and  although  the  prospect 
of  personal  emolument  has  been  some  induce- 
ment to  me,  yet  I  feel  infinitely  more  pleasure  in 
reflecting  on  the  immense  advantage  that  my 
country  will  derive  from  the  invention." 

Soon  after  this  successful  voyage,  the  Hudson 
boat  was  advertised  and  established  as  a  regular 
passage-boat  between  New  York  and  Albany. 
She,  however,  in  the  course  of  the  season,  met 
with  several  accidents,  from  the  hostility  of 
those  engaged  in  the  ordinary  navigation  of  the 
river,  and  from  defects  in  her  machinery,  the 
greatest  of  which  was  having  her  water-wheel 
shafts  of  cast-iron,  which  was  insufficient  to  sus- 
tain the  great  power  applied  to  them.  The 
wheels  also  were  hung  without  any  support  for 
the  outward  end  of  the  shaft,  which  is  now 
supplied  by  what  are  called  the  wheel-guards. 

At  the  session  of  1808  a  law  was  passed  to 
prolong  the  time  of  the  exclusive  right  to  thirty 
years ;  it  also  declared  combinations  to  destroy 
the  boat,  or  wilful  attempts  to  injure  her,  public 


62  INVENTORS 

offences,  punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment. 
Notwithstanding  her  misfortunes,  the  boat  con- 
tinued to  run  as  a  packet,  always  loaded  with 
passengers,  for  the  remainder  of  the  summer. 
In  the  course  of  the  ensuing  winter  she  was 
enlarged,  and  in  the  spring  of  1808  she  again 
began  running  as  a  packet-boat,  and  continued  it 
through  the  season.  Several  other  boats  were 
soon  built  for  the  Hudson  River,  and  also  for 
steamboat  companies  formed  in  different  parts 
of  the  United  States.  On  February  11,  1809,  Ful- 
ton took  out  a  patent  for  his  inventions  in  navi- 
gation by  steam,  and  on  February  9,  181 1,  he  ob- 
tained a  second  patent  for  some  improvements  in 
his  boats  and  machinery. 

About  the  year  1812  two  steam  ferry-boats 
were  built  under  the  direction  of  Fulton  for 
crossing  the  Hudson  River,  and  one  of  the  same 
description  for  the  East  River.  These  boats 
were  what  are  called  twin-boats,  each  of  them 
being  two  complete  hulls  united  by  a  deck  or 
bridge.  They  were  sharp  at  both  ends,  and 
moved  equally  well  with  either  end  foremost,  so 
that  they  crossed  and  recrossed  without  losing 
any  time  by  turning  about.  He  contrived,  with 
great  ingenuity,  floating  docks  for  the  reception 
of  these  boats,  and  a  means  by  which  they  were 
brought  to  them  without  a  shock.  These  boats, 
were  the  first  of  a  fleet  which  has  since  carried 
hundreds  of  millions  of  passengers  to  and  from 
New  York. 

From  the  time  the  first  boat  was  put  in  motion 
till  the  death  of  Fulton,  the  art  of  navigating  by 


ROBERT  FTILTON  03 

steam  advanced  rapidly  to  that  perfection  of 
which  he  believed  it  capable;  the  boats  per- 
formed each  successive  trip  with  increased 
speed,  and  every  year  improvements  were  made. 
The  last  boat  built  by  Fulton  was  invariably  the 
best,  the  most  convenient,  and  the  swiftest. 

At  the  beginning  of  1814  a  number  of  the  citi- 
zens of  New  York,  alarmed  at  the  exposed  situa- 
tion of  their  harbor,  had  assembled  with  a  view 
to  consider  whether  some  measures  might  not  be 
taken  to  aid  the  Government  in  its  protection. 
This  assembly  had  some  knowledge  of  Fulton's 
plans  for  submarine  attack,  and  knew  that  he 
contemplated  other  means  of  defence.  It  de- 
puted a  number  of  gentlemen  to  act  for  it,  and 
these  were  called  the  Coast  and  Harbor  Com- 
mittee. Fulton  exhibited  to  this  committee  the 
model  and  plans  for  a  vessel  of  war,  to  be  pro- 
pelled by  steam,  capable  of  carrying  a  strong 
battery,  with  furnaces  for  red-hot  shot,  and 
which,  he  represented,  would  move  at  the  rate 
of  four  miles  an  hour.  The  confidence  of  the 
committee  in  this  design  was  confirmed  by  the 
opinions  of  many  of  our  most  distinguished 
naval  commanders,  which  he  had  obtained  in 
writing,  and  exhibited  to  the  committee.  They 
pointed  out  many  advantages  which  a  steam 
vessel  of  war  would  possess  over  those  with  sails 
only. 

The  National  Legislature  passed  a  law  in 
March,  18 14,  authorizing  the  President  of  the 
United  States  to  cause  to  be  built,  equipped,  and 
employed  one  or  more  floating  batteries  for  the 


64  INVENTORS 

defence  of  the  waters  of  the  United  States.  A 
sub-committee  of  five  gentlemen  was  appointed 
to  superintend  the  building  of  the  proposed 
vessel,  and  Fulton,  whose  spirit  animated  the 
whole  enterprise,  was  appointed  the  engineer. 
In  June,  1814,  the  keel  of  this  novel  and  mighty 
engine  was  laid,  and  in  October  she  was  launched 
from  the  New  York  yard  of  Adam  and  Noah 
Brown.  The  scene  exhibited  on  this  occasion 
was  magnificent.  It  happened  on  one  of  our 
bright  autumnal  days.  Multitudes  of  spectators 
crowded  the  surrounding  shores.  The  river  and 
bay  were  filled  with  vessels  of  war,  dressed  in 
all  their  colors  in  compliment  to  the  occasion. 
By  May,  181 5,  her  engine  was  put  on  board,  and 
she  was  so  far  completed  as  to  afford  an  oppor- 
tunity of  trying  her  machinery.  On  the  4th  of 
July,  in  the  same  year,  the  steam-frigate  made 
a  passage  to  the  ocean  and  back,  a  distance  of 
fifty-three  miles,  in  eight  hours  and  twenty 
minutes,  by  the  mere  force  of  steam.  In  Sep- 
tember she  made  another  passage  to  the  sea, 
and  having  at  this  time  the  weight  of  her  whole 
armament  on  board,  she  went  at  the  rate  of  five 
and  a  half  miles  an  hour,  upon  an  average, 
with  and  against  the  tide.  The  superintending 
committee  gave  in  their  report  a  full  description 
of  the  Fulton  the  First,  the  honored  name  this 
vessel  bore. 

The  last  work  in  which  the  active  and  in- 
genious mind  of  Fulton  was  engaged  was  a  proj- 
ect for  the  modification  of  his  submarine  boat. 
He  presented  a  model  of  this  vessel  to  the  Gov- 


ROBERT  FULTON 


65 


ernment,  by  which  it  was  approved ;  and  under 
Federal  authority  he  began  building  one;  but 
before  the  hull  was  entirely  finished  his  country 


The  "Demologos,"  or  "Fulton  the  First." 
The  first  steam  vessel-of-war  in  the  world. 

had  to  lament  his  death,  and  the  mechanics  he 
employed  were  incapable  of  proceeding  without 
him. 

During  the  whole  time  that  Fulton  had  thus 
been  devoting  his  talents  to   the  service  of  his 
5 


66  INVENTORS 

country,  he  had  been  harassed  by  lawsuits  and 
controversies  with  those  who  were  violating  his 
patent  rights,  or  intruding  upon  his  exclusive 
grants.  The  State  of  New  Jersey  had  passed  a 
law  which  operated  against  Fulton,  without  be- 
ing of  much  advantage  to  those  interested  in  its 
passage,  inasmuch  as  the  laws  of  New  York  pre- 
vented any  but  Fulton's  boats  to  approach  the 
city  of  New  York.  Its  only  operation  was  to  stop 
a  boat  owned  in  New  York,  which  had  been  for 
several  years  running  to  New  Brunswick,  under 
a  license  from  Messrs.  Livingston  and  Fulton. 
A  bold  attempt  was  therefore  made  to  induce 
the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York  to  re- 
peal the  laws  which  they  had  passed  for  the  pro- 
tection of  their  exclusive  grant  to  Livingston 
and  Fulton.  The  committee  reported  that  such 
repeal  might  be  passed  consistently  with  good 
faith,  honor,  and  justice!  This  report  being 
made  to  the  House,  it  was  prevailed  upon  to  be 
less  precipitate  than  the  committee  had  been.  It 
gave  time,  which  the  committee  would  not  do, 
for  Fulton  to  be  sent  for  from  New  York.  The 
Assembly  and  Senate  in  joint  session  examined 
witnesses,  and  heard  him  and  the  petitioner  by 
counsel.  The  result  was  that  the  Legislature 
refused  to  repeal  the  prior  law,  or  to  pass  any 
act  on  the  subject.  The  Legislature  of  the  State 
of  New  Jersey  also  repealed  their  law,  Avhich 
left  Fulton  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  rights. 
This  enjoyment  was  of  very  short  duration ;  for 
on  returning  from  Trenton,  after  this  last  trial, 
he  was  exposed  on  the  Hudson,  which  was  very 


ROBERT  FULTON  67 

full  of  ice,  for  several  hours.  He  had  not  a  con- 
stitution to  encounter  such  exposure,  and  upon 
his  return  found  himself  much  indisposed.  He 
had  at  that  time  great  anxiety  about  the  steam- 
frigate,  and,  after  confining  himself  to  the  house 
for  a  few  days,  went  to  give  his  superintendence 
to  the  workmen  employed  about  her.  Forget- 
ting his  ill-health  in  the  interest  he  took  in  what 
was  doing  on  the  frigate,  he  remained  too  long 
exposed  on  a  bad  day  to  the  weather.  He  soon 
felt  the  effects  of  this  imprudence.  His  indis- 
position returned  upon  him  with  such  violence 
as  to  confine  him  to  his  bed.  His  illness  in- 
creased, and  on  February  24,  18 15,  it  ended  his 
life. 

It  was  not  known  that  Fulton's  illness  was 
dangerous  till  a  very  short  time  before  his  death. 
Means  were  immediately  taken  to  testify,  pub- 
licly, the  universal  regret  at  his  loss,  and  respect 
for  his  memory.  The  corporation  of  the  city  of 
New  York,  the  different  literary  institutions  and 
other  societies,  assembled  and  passed  resolutions 
expressing  their  estimation  of  his  worth,  and  re- 
gret at  his  loss.  They  also  resolved  to  attend 
his  funeral,  and  that  the  members  should  wear 
badges  of  mourning  for  a  certain  time.  As  soon 
as  the  Legislature,  which  was  then  in  session  at 
Albany,  heard  of  the  death  of  Fulton,  they  ex- 
pressed their  participation  in  the  general  senti- 
ment by  resolving  that  the  members  of  both 
Houses  should  wear  mourning  for  some  weeks. 

In  1806  Fulton  married  Harriet  Livingston,  a 
daughter  of  Walter  Livingston,  a  relative  of  his 


68  INVENTORS 

associate,  Chancellor  Livingston.  He  left  four 
children  ;  one  son,  Robert  Barlow  Fulton,  and 
three  daughters.  Fulton  was  in  person  consid- 
erably above  medium  height ;  his  face  showed 
great  intelligence.  Natural  refinement  and  long 
intercourse  with  the  most  polished  society  of 
Europe  and  America  had  given  him  grace  and 
elegance  of  manner. 


The    Clermont. 


III. 

ELI   WHITNEY. 

In  1784  an  American  vessel  arrived  at  Liver- 
pool having  on  board,  as  part  of  her  cargo,  eight 
bags  of  cotton,  which  were  seized  by  the  Custom- 
House  under  the  conviction  that  they  could  not 
be  the  growth  of  America.  The  whole  amount 
of  cotton  arriving  at  Liverpool  from  America 
during  the  two  following  years  was  less  than 
one  hundred  and  twenty  bags.  When  Eli  Whit- 
ney, the  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  applied  for 
his  first  patent  in  1793,  the  total  export  of  cotton 
from  the  United  States  was  less  than  ten  thou- 
sand bales.  Fifty  years  later,  the  growth  of  this 
industry,  owing  almost  wholly  to  Whitney's 
gin,  had  increased  to  millions  of  bales,  and  by 
i860,  the  export  amounted  to  four  million  bales. 

According  to  the  estimate  of  Judge  Johnson, 
given  in  the  most  famous  decision  affecting  the 
cotton-gin,  the  debts  of  the  South  were  paid  off 
by  its  aid,  its  capital  was  increased,  and  its  lands 
trebled  in  value.  This  famous  device,  the  gift 
of  a  young  Northerner  to  the  South,  was  re- 
warded by  thirty  years  of  ingratitude,  relieved 
only  by  a  few  gleams  of  sunshine  in  the  way  of 
justice,  serving  to  make  the  injustice  all  the 
more  conspicuous.  Whitney  added  hundreds 
of  millions  to  the  wealth  of  the  United  States. 


Eli  Whitney, 


ELI  WHITNEY  71 

His  personal  reward  was  countless  lawsuits  and 
endless  vexation  of  body  and  spirit.  No  more 
conspicuous  example  can  be  cited  of  steady  pa- 
tience and  sweet-tempered  perseverance. 

Eli  Whitney  was  born  in  Westborough,  Wor- 
cester County,  Mass.,  December  8,  1765.  His 
parents  belonged  to  that  respectable  class  of  so- 
ciety who,  by  honest  farming  and  kindred  indus- 
tries, managed  to  provide  well  for  the  rising 
family — the  class  from  whom  have  arisen  most  of 
those  who  in  New  England  have  attained  to  emi- 
nence and  usefulness.  The  indications  of  his 
mechanical  genius  were  noted  at  an  early  age. 
Of  his  passion  for  mechanics,  his  sister  gives 
the  following  account : 

''  Our  father  had  a  workshop  and  sometimes 
made  wheels  of  different  kinds,  and  chairs.  He 
had  a  variety  of  tools  and  a  lathe  for  turning 
chair-posts.  This  gave  my  brother  an  oppor- 
tunity of  learning  the  use  of  tools  when  very 
young.  He  lost  no  time,  but  as  soon  as  he  could 
handle  tools  he  was  always  making  something 
in  the  shop,  and  seemed  to  prefer  that  to  work 
on  the  farm.  After  the  death  of  our  mother, 
when  our  father  had  been  absent  from  home  two 
or  three  days,  on  his  return  he  inquired  of  the 
housekeeper  what  the  boys  had  been  doing.  She 
told  him  what  the  elders  had  done.  '  But  what 
has  Eli  been  doing  ?  *  said  he.  She  replied  he 
has  been  making  a  fiddle.  '  Ah  ! '  added  he,  de- 
spondently, '  I  fear  Eli  will  have  to  take  his  por- 
tion in  fiddles.'  " 


72  INVENTORS 

He  was  at  this  time  about  twelve  years  old. 
The  sister  adds  that  his  fiddle  was  finished 
throughout  like  a  common  violin  and  made 
pretty  good  music.  It  was  examined  by  many 
persons,  and  all  pronounced  it  to  be  a  model 
piece  of  work  for  such  a  boy.  From  this  time 
he  was  always  employed  to  repair  violins,  and 
did  many  nice  jobs  that  were  executed  to  the 
entire  satisfaction  and  even  to  the  astonishment 
of  his  customers.  His  father's  watch  being  the 
greatest  piece  of  mechanism  that  had  yet  pre- 
sented itself  to  his  observation,  he  was  extremely 
desirous  of  examining  its  interior  construction, 
but  was  not  permitted  to  do  so.  One  Sunday 
morning,  observing  that  his  father  was  going  to 
church  and  would  leave  at  home  the  wonderful 
little  machine,  he  feigned  illness  as  an  apology  for 
not  going.  As  soon  as  the  family  were  out  of 
sight,  he  flew  to  the  room  where  the  watch  hung 
and  took  it  down.  He  was  so  delighted  with  its 
motion  that  he  took  it  to  pieces  before  he  thought 
of  the  consequences  of  his  rash  deed ;  for  his 
father  was  a  stern  parent,  and  punishment  would 
have  been  the  reward  of  his  idle  curiosity,  had  the 
mischief  been  detected.  He,  however,  put  the 
works  so  neatly  together  that  his  father  never 
discovered  his  audacity  until  he  himself  told  him 
many  years  afterward. 

When  Eli  was  thirteen  years  old  his  father 
married  a  second  time.  His  stepmother,  among 
her  articles  of  furniture,  had  a  handsome  set  of 
table-knives  that  she  valued  very  highly. 

One  day  Eli  said  :  *'  I  could  make  as  good  ones 


ELI  WHITNEY  73 

if  I  had  tools,  and  I  could  make  the  tools  if  I 
had  common  tools  to  begin  with ; "  his  mother 
laughed  at  him.  But  it  so  happened  soon  after- 
ward that  one  of  the  knives  was  broken,  and  he 
made  one  exactly  like  it  in  every  respect,  except 
the  stamp  of  the  blade.  When  he  was  fifteen  or 
sixteen  years  of  age,  he  suggested  to  his  father 
an  enterprise  which  clearly  showed  his  capacity 
for  important  work.  The  time  being  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  nails  were  in  great  demand  and  at 
high  prices.  They  were  made  chiefly  By  hand. 
Whitney  proposed  to  his  father  to  get  him  a  fe^v 
tools  and  allow  him  to  set  up  the  manufacture 
of  nails.  His  father  consented,  and  the  work 
was  begun.  By  extraordinary  diligence  he 
found  time  to  make  tools  for  his  own  use  and  to 
put  in  knife-blades,  repair  farm  machinery,  and 
perform  other  little  jobs  beyond  the  skill  of  the 
country  workman.  At  this  occupation  the  en- 
terprising boy  worked  alone  with  great  success 
and  with  large  profit  to  his  father  for  two  win- 
ters, going  on  with  the  ordinary  work  of  the 
farm  during  the  summer.  He  devised  a  plan  for 
enlarging  the  business,  and  managed  to  obtain 
help  from  a  fellow-laborer  whom  he  picked  up 
when  on  a  short  journey  of  forty  miles,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  tells  us  that  he  called  at  every 
w^orkshop  on  the  way  and  gleaned  all  the  infor- 
mation as  to  tools  and  methods  that  he  could. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  the  business  of  making 
nails  v/as  no  longer  profitable ;  but  the  fashion 
prevailing  among  the  ladies  of  fastening  on  their 
bonnets  with  long  pins  having  appeared,  he  con- 


74  INVENTORS 

trived  to  make  these  pins  with  such  skill  that  he 
nearly  monopolized  the  business,  though  he  de- 
voted to  it  only  such  leisure  as  he  could  redeem 
from  the  occupations  of  the  farm.  He  also  made 
excellent  walking-canes.  At  the  age  of  nineteen 
Whitney  conceived  the  idea  of  getting  a  liberal 
education ;  and  partly  by  the  results  of  his  me- 
chanical industries,  and  partly  by  teaching  the 
village  school,  he  was  enabled  so  far  to  surmount 
the  difficulties  in  his  way  as  to  prepare  himself 
for  the  Freshman  Class  in  Yale  College,  which  he 
entered  in  1789.  At  college  his  mechanical  pro- 
pensity frequently  showed  itself.  He  success- 
fully undertook,  on  one  occasion,  the  repairing 
of  some  of  the  philosophical  apparatus.  Soon 
after  taking  his  degree,  in  the  autumn  of  1792, 
he  engaged  with  a  Georgia  family  as  private 
teacher,  and  through  his  engagement  he  made 
the  acquaintance  of  a  certain  General  Greene,  of 
Savannah,  who  took  a  deep  interest  in  him,  and 
with  whom  he  began  the  study  of  law.  While 
living  with  the  Greenes  he  noticed  an  embroid- 
ery-frame used  by  Mrs.  Greene,  and  about 
which  she  complained,  observing  that  it  tore  the 
delicate  threads  of  her  work.  Young  Whitney, 
eager  to  oblige  his  hostess,  went  to  work  and 
speedily  produced  a  frame  on  an  entirely  new 
plan.  The  family  were  much  delighted  with  it, 
and  considered  it  a  wonderful  piece  of  inge- 
nuity. 

Not  long  afterward  the  Greenes  were  visited 
by  a  party  of  gentlemen,  chiefly  officers  who  had 
served  under  the  general  in  the  Revolutionary 


ELI   WHITNEY 


75 


War.  The  conversation  turned  on  the  state  of 
agriculture.  It  was  remarked  that  unfortunately 
there  was  no  means  of  cleaning  the  staple  of 
the  green  cotton-seed,  which  might  otherwise  be 
profitably  raised  on  land  unsuitable  for  rice.  But 
until  someone  devised  a  machine  which  would 
clean  the  cotton,  it  was  vain  to  think  of  raising 


Whitney  Watching  the   Cotton-Gin. 

it  for  market.  Separating  one  pound  of  the 
clean  staple  from  the  seed  was  a  day's  work  for 
a  woman.  The  time  usually  devoted  to  the  pick- 
ing of  cotton  was  the  evening,  after  the  labor  of 
the  field  was  over.  Then  the  slaves — men,  wom- 
en, and  children — were  collected  in  circles,  with 
one  in  the  middle  whose  duty  it  was  to  rouse 
the  dosing  and  quicken  the  indolent.  While 
the  company  were  engaged  in  this  conversation, 
Mrs.  Greene  said :    "  Gentlemen,   apply   to   my 


76  INVENTORS 

young  friend  here,  Mr.  Whitney  ;  he  can  make 
anything."  And  she  showed  them  the  frame  and 
several  other  articles  he  had  made.  He  mod- 
estly disclaimed  all  pretensions  to  mechanical 
genius,  and  replied  that  he  had  never  seen  cot- 
ton-seed. 

Nevertheless,  he  immediately  began  upon  the 
task  of  inventing  and  constructing  the  machine 
on  which  his  fame  depends.  A  Mr.  Phineas 
Miller,  a  neighbor,  to  whom  he  com^municated 
his  design,  warmly  encouraged  him,  and  gave 
him  a  room  in  his  house  wherein  to  carry  on  his 
operations.  Here  he  began  work  with  the  dis- 
advantage of  being  obliged  to  manufacture  his 
own  tools  and  draw  his  own  wire — an  article  not 
to  be  found  in  Savannah.  Mr.  Miller  and  Mrs. 
Greene  were  the  only  persons  who  knew  any- 
thing of  his  occupation.  Near  the  close  of  the 
winter,  1793,  the  machine  was  so  far  completed 
as  to  leave  no  doubt  of  its  success.  The  person 
who  contributed  most  to  the  success  of  the  un- 
dertaking, after  the  inventor,  was  his  friend, 
Miller,  a  native  of  Connecticut  and  a  graduate  of 
Yale.  Like  Whitney,  he  had  come  to  Georgia 
as  a  private  teacher,  and  after  the  death  of  Gen- 
eral Greene  he  married  the  widow.  He  was  a 
lawyer  by  profession,  with  a  turn  for  mechanics. 
He  had  some  money  and  proposed  to  Whitney 
to  become  his  partner,  he  to  be  at  the  whole 
expense  of  manufacturing  the  invention  until 
it  should  be  patented.  If  the  machine  should 
succeed,  they  agreed  that  the  profits  and  ad- 
vantages  should  be  divided  between  them.     A 


ELI  WHITNEY  77 

legal  paper  covering  this  agreement  and  estab- 
lishing the  firm  of  Miller  &  Whitney,  bears  the 
date  of  May  ly,  1793. 

An  invention  so  important  to  the  agricultural 
interests  of  the  country  could  not  long  remain  a 
secret.  The  knowledge  of  it  swept  through  the 
State,  and  so  great  was  the  excitement  on  the 
subject  that  crowds  of  persons  came  from  all 
parts  to  see  the  machine ;  it  was  not  deemed  safe 
to  gratify  curiosity  until  the  patent-right  should 
be  secured.  But  so  determined  were  some  of 
these  people  that  neither  law  nor  justice  could 
restrain  them ;  they  broke  into  the  building  by 
night  and  carried  off  the  machine.  In  this  way 
the  public  became  possessed  of  the  invention, 
and  before  Whitney  could  complete  his  model 
and  secure  his  patent,  a  number  of  machines, 
patterned  after  his,  were  in  successful  operation. 

The  principle  of  the  Whitney  cotton-gin  and 
all  other  gins  following  its  features  is  so  well 
known  as  to  make  it  scarcely  •worth  while  to  de- 
scribe it  here.  The  different  parts  are  two  cylin- 
ders of  different  diameters,  mounted  in  a  strong 
wooden  frame,  one  cylinder  bearing  a  number 
of  circular  saws  fitted  into  grooves  cut  into  the 
cylinder.  The  other  hollow  cylinder  is  mounted 
with  brushes,  the  tips  of  whose  bristles  touch 
the  saw-teeth.  The  cotton  is  put  into  a  hopper, 
where  it  is  met  by  the  sharp  teeth  of  the  saws, 
torn  from  the  seed,  and  carried  to  a  point  where 
the  brushes  sweep  it  off  into  a  convenient  recep- 
tacle. The  seeds  are  too  large  to  pass  between 
the  bars  through  Avhich  the  saws  protrude.     This 


78 


INVENTORS 


is  the  principle  of  the  first  machine,  but  many 
improvements  have  been  made  since  Whitney's 
day.  Nevertheless,  by  means  of  the  cotton-gin, 
even  in  its  earliest  shape,  one  man,  with  the  aid 
of  two-horse  power,  could  clean  five  thousand 
pounds  of  cotton  in  a  day. 


The   Cotton-Gin. 
(From  the  original  model.) 

As  soon  as  the  partnership  of  Miller  &  Whit- 
ney was  formed,  the  latter  went  to  Connecticut 
to  perfect  the  machine,  obtain  the  patent,  and 
manufacture  for  Georgia  as  many  machines  as 
he  thought  would  supply  the  demand.  At  once 
there  began  between  Whitney  in  Connecticut 
and  Miller  in  Georgia  a  correspondence  relative 


ELI  WHITNEY  79 

to  the  cotton-gin,  which  gives  a  complete  history 
of  the  extraordinary  efforts  made  by  the  two 
partners  and  the  disappointments  that  fell  to 
their  lot.  The  very  first  letter,  written  three 
days  after  Whitney  left,  announces  that  en- 
croachments upon  their  rights  had  already  be- 
gun. "  It  will  be  necessary,"  says  Miller,  ''  to 
have  a  considerable  number  of  gins  in  readiness 
to  send  out  as  soon  as  the  patent  is  obtained  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  absolute  demands  and  make 
people's  heads  easy  on  the  subject ;  for  I  am  in- 
formed of  two  other  claimants  for  the  honor  of 
the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  in  addition  to 
those  we  knew  before."  At  the  close  of  the  year 
1793  Whitney  was  to  return  to  Georgia  with 
his  gins,  where  his  partner  had  made  arrange- 
ments for  beginning  business.  The  importunity 
of  Miller's  letters,  written  during  this  period, 
urging  him  to  come  on,  show  how  eager  the 
Georgia  planters  were  to  enter  the  new  field  of 
enterprise  that  the  genius  of  Whitney  had 
opened  to  them.  Nor  did  they  at  first  contem- 
plate stealing  the  invention.  But  the  minds  of 
even  the  more  honorable  among  the  planters 
were  afterward  deluded  by  various  artifices  set 
on  foot  by  designing  rivals  of  Whitney  with  a 
view  to  robbing  him  of  his  rights.  One  of  the 
greatest  difficulties  experienced  by  the  partners 
Avas  the  extreme  scarcity  of  money,  which  em- 
barrassed them  so  much  as  to  make  it  impos- 
sible to  construct  machines  fast  enough. 

In    April     Whitney     returned     to     Georgia. 
Large   crops  of   cotton    had    been    planted,   the 


80  INVENTORS 

profits  of  which  were  to  depend  almost  wholly 
on  the  success  of  the  gin.  A  formidable  com- 
petitor, the  roller-gin,  had  also  appeared,  which 
destroyed  the  seed  by  means  of  rollers,  crushing 
them  between  revolving  cylinders  instead  of  dis- 
engaging them  by  means  of  teeth.  The  frag- 
ments of  seeds  which  remained  in  the  cotton 
made  it  much  inferior  to  Whitney's  gin,  and  it 
was  slower  in  operation.  A  still  more  danger- 
ous rival  appeared  in  1795,  under  the  name  of 
the  saw-gin.  It  was  really  Whitney's  invention, 
except  that  the  teeth  were  cut  in  circular  rings 
of  iron  instead  of  being  made  of  wire,  as  in  the 
earlier  forms  of  the  Whitney  gin.  The  use  of 
such  teeth  had  occurred  to  Whitney,  as  he  es- 
tablished by  legal  proof.  They  would  have  been 
of  no  use  except  in  connection  with  other  parts 
of  his  machine,  and  it  was  a  palpable  attempt  to 
invade  his  patent  right.  It  was  chiefly  in  refer- 
ence to  this  device  that  the  endless  lawsuits  that 
wore  the  life  out  of  the  partners  were  afterward 
held. 

In  March,  1795,  after  two  years  of  struggle, 
during  which  no  progress  seems  to  have  been 
made,  although  the  value  of  the  gin  was  proved, 
Whitney  went  to  New  York,  where  he  was  de- 
tained three  weeks  by  fever.  Upon  reaching 
New  Haven  he  discovered  that  his  shop,  with 
all  his  machines  and  papers,  had  been  consumed 
by  fire.  Thus  he  was  suddenly  reduced  to  bank- 
ruptcy and  was  in  debt  $4,000  without  any  means 
of  payment.  He  was  not,  however,  one  to  sink 
under  such  trials.     Miller  showed  the  same  buoy- 


ELI   WHITNEY  81 

ant  spirit,  and  the  following  extract  of  a  letter  of 
his  to  Whitney  may  be  a  useful  lesson  to  young 
men  in  trouble  : 

*'  I  think  we  ought  to  meet  such  events  with 
equanimity.  We  have  been  pursuing  a  valuable 
object  by  honorable  means,  and  I  trust  that  all 
our  measures  have  been  such  as  reason  and  virt- 
ue must  justify.  It  has  pleased  Providence  to 
postpone  the  attainment  of  this  object.  In  the 
midst  of  the  reflections  which  your  story  has  sug- 
gested, and  with  feelings  keenly  awake  to  the 
heavy,  the  extensive  injury  we  have  sustained,  I 
feel  a  secret  joy  and  satisfaction  that  you  pos- 
sess a  mind  in  this  respect  similar  to  my  own — 
that  you  are  not  disheartened,  that  you  do  not 
relinquish  the  pursuit,  and  that  you  will  perse- 
vere, and  endeavor,  at  all  events,  to  attain  the 
main  object.  This  is  exactly  consonant  to  my 
own  determinations.  I  will  devote  all  my  time, 
all  my  thoughts,  all  my  exertions,  and  all  the 
money  I  can  earn  or  borrow  to  encompass  and 
complete  the  business  we  have  undertaken  ;  and  if 
fortune  should,  by  any  future  disaster,  deny  us  the 
boon  we  ask,  we  will  at  least  deserve  it.  It  shall 
never  be  said  that  we  have  lost  an  object  which 
a  little  perseverance  could  have  attained.  I  think, 
indeed,  it  will  be  very  extraordinary  if  two  young 
men  in  the  prime  of  life,  with  some  share  of  inge- 
nuity, and  with  a  little  knowledge  of  the  world,  a 
great  deal  of  industry,  and  a  considerable  com- 
mand of  property,  should  not  be  able  to  sustain 
such  a  stroke  of  misfortune  as  this,  heavy  as  it  is." 
6 


82  INVENTORS 

Miller  winds  up  by  suggesting  to  Whitney 
that  perhaps  he  can  get  help  in  New  Haven  by 
offering  twelve  per  cent,  a  year  for  money  with 
which  to  build  a  new  shop,  and  the  inventor 
seems  to  have  had  some  success  in  reorganizing 
his  affairs,  even  under  such  desperate  conditions. 
Word  came  at  the  same  time  from  England  that 
manufacturers  had  condemned  the  cotton  cleaned 
by  their  machines  on  the  ground  that  the  staple 
was  greatly  injured.  This  threatened  a  death- 
blow to  their  hopes.  At  the  time,  1796,  they  al- 
ready had  thirty  gins  at  different  places  in 
Georgia,  some  worked  by  horses  and  oxen  and 
some  by  water.  Some  of  these  were  still  stand- 
ing a  few  years  ago.  The  following  extract  of 
a  letter  by  Whitney  will  show  the  state  of  his 
mind  and  affairs : 

"  The  extreme  embarrassments  which  have 
been  for  a  long  time  accumulating  upon  me  are 
noAv  become  so  great  that  it  will  be  impossible 
for  me  to  struggle  against  them  many  days 
longer.  It  has  required  my  utmost  exertions 
to  exist  without  making  the  least  progress  in 
our  business.  I  have  labored  hard  against  the 
strong  current  of  disappointment  which  has  been 
threatening  to  carry  us  down  the  cataract,  but  I 
have  labored  with  a  shattered  oar  and  struggled 
in  vain,  unless  some  speedy  relief  is  obtained. 
Life  is  but  short  at  best,  and  six  or 
seven  years  out  of  the  midst  of  it  is  to  him  who 
makes  it  an  immense  sacrifice.  My  most  unre- 
mitted attention  has  been  devoted   to  our  busi- 


ELI  WHITNEY  83 

ness.  I  have  sacrificed  to  it  other  objects  from 
which,  before  this  time,  I  might  certainly  have 
gained  $20,000  or  $30,000.  My  whole  prospects 
have  been  embarked  in  it,  with  the  expectation 
that  I  should  before  this  time  have  realized  some- 
thing from  it." 

The  cotton  of  Whitney's  gin  was,  however, 
sought  by  merchants  in  preference  to  other 
kinds,  and  respectable  manufacturers  testified  in 
his  favor.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  extensive  and 
shameful  violations  of  their  patent -right,  the 
partners  might  yet  have  succeeded ;  but  these 
encroachments  had  become  so  extensive  as  al- 
most to  destroy  its  value.  The  issue  of  the  first 
important  trial  that  they  were  able  to  obtain  on 
the  merits  of  the  gin  is  announced  in  the  follow- 
ing letter  from  Miller  to  Whitney,  dated  May 
II,  1797: 

"  The  event  of  the  first  patent  suit,  after  all 
our  exertions  made  in  such  a  variety  of  ways, 
has  gone  against  us.  The  preposterous  custom 
of  trying  civil  causes  of  this  intricacy  and  mag- 
nitude by  a  common  jury,  together  with  the  im- 
perfection of  the  patent  law,  frustrated  all  our 
views,  and  disappointed  expectations  which  had 
become  very  sanguine.  The  tide  of  popular 
opinion  was  running  in  our  favor,  the  judge  was 
well  disposed  toward  us,  and  many  decided 
friends  were  with  us,  who  adhered  firmly  to  our 
cause  and  interests.  The  judge  gave  a  charge 
to  the  jury  pointedly  in  our  favor ;  after  which 
the  defendant  himself  told   an   acquaintance   of 


84  INVENTORS 

his  that  he  would  give  two  thousand  dollars 
to  be  free  from  the  verdict,  and  yet  the  jury 
gave  it  against  us,  after  a  consultation  of  about 
an  hour.  And  having  made  the  verdict  general, 
no  appeal  would  lie. 

"  On  Monday  morning,  when  the  verdict  was 
rendered,  we  applied  for  a  new  trial,  but  the 
judge  refused  it  to  us  on  the  ground  that  the  jury 
might  have  made  up  their  opinion  on  the  defect 
of  the  law,  which  makes  an  aggression  consist  of 
making,  devising,  and  using  or  selling ;  whereas 
we  could  only  charge  the  defendant  with  using. 

"  Thus,  after  four  years  of  assiduous  labor, 
fatigue,  and  difficulty,  are  we  again  set  afloat  by 
a  new  and  most  unexpected  obstacle.  Our  hopes 
of  success  are  now  removed  to  a  period  still 
more  distant  than  before,  while  our  expenses  are 
realized  beyond  all  controversy." 

Great  efforts  were  made  to  obtain  trial  in  a 
second  suit  in  Savannah  the  following  May,  and 
a  number  of  witnesses  were  collected  from  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  country,  all  to  no  purpose,  for 
the  judge  failed  to  appear,  and  in  the  meantime, 
owing  to  the  failure  of  the  first  suit,  encroach- 
ments on  the  patent -right  had  multiplied  pro- 
digiously. 

In  April,  1799,  nearly  a  year  later,  and  two 
years  after  their  first  legal  rebuff,  Miller  writes 
as  follows : 

"  The  prospect  of  making  anything  by  gin- 
ning in  this  State  is  at  an  end.  Surreptitious  gins 
are  erected  in  every  part  of  the  country,  and  the 


ELI   WHITNEY  85 

jurymen  at  Augusta  have  come  to  an  under- 
standing among  themselves  that  they  will  never 
give  a  cause  in  our  favor,  let  the  merits  of  the 
case  be  as  they  may." 

The  company  would  now  have  gladly  relin- 
quished the  plan  of  making  their  own  machines, 
and  confined  their  operations  to  the  sale  of  patent- 
rights  ;  but  few  would  buy  the  right  to  a  machine 
which  could  be  used  with  impunity  without  pur- 
chase, and  those  few  usually  gave  notes  instead 
of  cash,  which  they  afterward,  to  a  great  extent, 
avoided  paying,  either  by  obtaining  a  verdict 
from  the  juries  declaring  them  void,  or  by  con- 
triving to  postpone  the  collection  till  they  were 
barred  by  the  Statute  of  Limitations,  a  period  of 
only  four  years.  The  agent  of  Miller  &  Whit- 
ney, who  was  despatched  on  a  collecting  tour 
through  the  State  of  Georgia,  informed  his  em- 
ployers that  such  obstacles  were  thrown  in  his 
way  by  one  or  the  other  of  these  causes  that  he 
was  unable  to  collect  money  enough  to  pay  his 
expenses.  It  was  suggested  that  an  application 
to  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina  to  purchase 
the  patent-right  for  that  State  would  be  success- 
ful. Whitney  accordingly  repaired  to  Colum- 
bia, and  the  business  was  brought  before  the 
Legislature  in  December,  1801.  An  extract  from 
a  letter  by  Whitney  at  this  time  shows  the  nat- 
ure of  the  contract  thus  made  : 

"  I  have  been  at  this  place  a  little  more  than 
two  weeks  attending  the  Legislature.  A  few 
hours  previous  to  their  adjournment  they  voted 


S6  INVENTORS 

to  purchase  for  the  State  of  South  Carolina  my 
patent-right  to  the  machine  for  cleaning  cotton 
at  $50,000,  of  which  sum  $20,000  is  to  be  paid 
in  hand,  and  the  remainder  in  three  annual  pay- 
ments of  $10,000  each."  He  adds:  "We  get 
but  a  song  for  it  in  comparison  with  the  worth 
of  the  thing,  but  it  is  securing  something.  It 
will  enable  Miller  &  Whitney  to  pay  their  debts 
and  divide  something  between  them." 

In  December,  1802,  Whitney  negotiated  the 
sale  of  his  patent-right  with  the  State  of  North 
Carolina.  The  Legislature  laid  a  tax  of  2s.  6d. 
upon  every  saw  (some  of  the  gins  had  forty  saws) 
employed  in  ginning  cotton,  to  be  continued  for 
five  years ;  and  after  deducting  the  expenses 
of  collection  the  returns  were  faithfully  passed 
over  to  the  patentee.  This  compensation  was 
regarded  by  Whitney  as  more  liberal  than  that 
received  from  any  other  source.  About  the 
same  time  Mr.  Goodrich,  the  agent  of  the  com- 
pany, entered  into  a  similar  negotiation  with 
Tennessee,  which  State  had  by  this  time  be- 
gun to  realize  the  importance  of  the  invention. 
The  Legislature  passed  a  law  laying  a  tax  of  37|- 
cents  per  annum  on  every  saw  used,  for  the 
period  of  four  years.  Thus  far  the  prospects 
were  growing  favorable  to  the  patentees,  when 
the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina  unexpectedly 
annulled  the  contract  which  they  had  made,  sus- 
pended further  payment  of  the  balance,  and  sued 
for  the  refunding  of  what  had  been  already 
paid.      When  Whitney  first  heard  of  the  trans- 


ELI  WHITNEY  87 

actions  of  the  South  Carolina  Legislature,  he 
was  at  Raleigh,  where  he  had  just  completed 
a  negotiation  with  the  Legislature  of  North 
Carolina.  In  a  letter  written  to  Miller  at  this 
time,  he  remarks : 

''  I  am,  for  my  own  part,  more  vexed  than 
alarmed  by  their  extraordinary  proceedings.  I 
think  it  behooves  us  to  be  very  cautious  and 
very  circumspect  in  our  measures,  and  even  in 
our  remarks  with  regard  to  it.  Be  cautious  what 
you  say  or  publish  till  we  meet  our  enemies  in 
a  court  of  justice,  where,  if  they  have  any  sen- 
sibility left,  we  will  make  them  very  much 
ashamed  of  their  childish  conduct." 

But  that  Whitney  felt  keenly  the  severities 
afterward  practised  against  him  is  evident  from 
the  tenor  of  the  remonstrance  which  he  pre- 
sented to  the  Legislature : 

"  The  subscriber  avers  that  he  has  manifested 
no  other  than  a  disposition  to  fulfil  all  the  stipu- 
lations entered  into  with  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  with  punctuality  and  good  faith ;  and 
he  begs  leave  to  observe  further,  that  to  have  in- 
dustriously, laboriously,  and  exclusively  devoted 
many  years  of  the  prime  of  his  life  to  the  inven- 
tion and  the  improvement  of  a  machine  from 
which  the  citizens  of  South  Carolina  have  already 
realized  immense  profits,  which  is  worth  to  them 
millions,  and  from  which  their  prosperity  must 
continue  to  derive  the  most  important  profits,  and 
in  return  to  be  treated  as  a  felon,  a  swindler,  and 


88  INVENT0B8 

a  villain,  has  stung  him  to  the  very  soul.  And 
when  he  considers  that  this  cruel  persecution  is 
inflicted  by  the  very  persons  who  are  enjoying 
these  great  benefits,  and  expressly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  preventing  his  ever  deriving  the  least 
advantage  from  his  own  labors,  the  acuteness  of 
his  feelings  is  altogether  inexpressible." 

Doubts,  it  seems,  had  arisen  in  the  public  mind 
as  to  the  validity  of  the  patent.  Great  exer- 
tions had  been  made  in  Georgia,  where,  it  will 
be  remembered,  hostilities  were  first  declared 
against  him,  to  show  that  his  title  to  the  inven- 
tion was  unsound,  and  that  ''  somebody "  in 
Switzerland  had  conceived  it  before  him  ;  and 
that  the  improved  form  of  the  machine  with 
saws,  instead  of  wire  teeth,  did  not  come  within 
the  patent,  having  been  introduced  by  one 
Flodgin  Holmes.  The  popular  voice,  stimulated 
by  the  most  sordid  methods,  was  now  raised 
against  Whitney  throughout  all  the  cotton  States. 
Tennessee  followed  the  example  of  South  Caro- 
lina, annulling  the  contract  made  with  him.  And 
the  attempt  was  made  in  North  Carolina.  But  a 
committee  of  the  Legislature,  to  Avhom  it  was  re- 
ferred, reported  in  Whitney's  favor,  declaring 
"that  the  contract  ought  to  be  fulfilled  with 
punctuality  and  good  faith,"  which  resolution 
was  adopted  by  both  Houses.  There  were  also 
high-minded  men  in  South  Carolina  who  were 
indignant  at  the  dishonorable  measures  adopted 
by  their  Legislature  of  1803;  their  sentiments 
impressed  the  community  so  favorably  with  re- 


ELI  WHITNEY  89 

gard  to  Whitney  that,  at  the  session  of  1804,  the 
Legislature  not  only  rescinded  what  the  previ- 
ous one  had  done,  but  signified  their  respect  for 
Whitney  by  marked  commendations. 

Miller  died  on  December  7,  1803.  In  the 
earlier  stages  of  the  enterprise  he  had  indulged 
high  hopes  of  a  great  fortune ;  perpetual  disap- 
pointments appear  to  have  attended  him  through 
life.  Whitney  was  now  left  alone  to  contend 
single-handed  against  the  difficulties  which  had, 
for  a  series  of  years,  almost  broken  down  the 
spirits  of  the  partners.  The  light,  moreover, 
which  seemed  to  be  breaking,  proved  but  the 
twilight  of  prosperity.  The  favorable  issue  of 
Whitney's  affairs  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  gen- 
erous receipts  he  obtained  from  his  contract 
with  North  Carolina,  relieved  him,  however, 
from  the  embarrassments  under  which  he  had 
so  long  groaned,  and  made  him,  in  some  degree, 
independent.  Still,  no  small  portion  of  the  funds 
thus  collected  in  North  and  South  Carolina  was 
expended  in  carrying  on  trials  and  endless  law- 
suits in  Georgia. 

Finall}^,  in  the  United  States  Court,  held  in 
Georgia,  December,  1807,  Whitney's  patent  ob- 
tained a  most  important  decision  in  its  favor 
against  a  trespasser  named  Fort.  It  was  on  this 
trial  that  Judge  Johnson  gave  a  most  celebrated 
decision  in  the  following  words  : 

"  To  support  the  originality  of  the  invention, 
the  complainants  have  produced  a  variety  of 
depositions  of  witnesses,  examined  under  com- 


90  INVENTORS 

mission,  whose  examinations  expressly  prove  the 
origin,  progress,  and  completion  of  the  machine 
of  Whitney,  one  of  the  copartners.  Persons  who 
were  made  privy  to  his  first  discovery  testify  to 
the  several  experiments  which  he  made  in  their 
presence  before  he  ventured  to  expose  his  in- 
vention to  the  scrutiny  of  the  public  eye.  But  it 
is  not  necessary  to  resort  to  such  testimony  to 
maintain  this  point.  The  jealousy  of  the  artist 
to  maintain  that  reputation  which  his  ingenuity 
has  justly  acquired,  has  urged  him  to  unneces- 
sary pains  on  this  subject.  There  are  circum- 
stances in  the  knowledge  of  all  mankind  which 
prove  the  originality  of  this  invention  more  satis- 
factorily to  the  mind  than  the  direct  testimony 
of  a  host  of  witnesses.  The  cotton-plant  fur- 
nished clothing  to  mankind  before  the  age  of 
Herodotus.  The  green  seed  is  a  species  much 
more  productive  than  the  black,  and  by  nature 
adapted  to  a  much  greater  variety  of  climate, 
but  by  reason  of  the  strong  adherence  of  the 
fibre  to  the  seed,  without  the  aid  of  some  more 
powerful  machine  for  separating  it  than  any  for- 
merly known  among  us,  the  cultivation  of  it 
would  never  have  been  made  an  object.  The 
machine  of  which  Mr.  Whitney  claims  the  inven- 
tion so  facilitates  the  preparation  of  this  species 
for  use  that  the  cultivation  of  it  has  suddenly 
become  an  object  of  infinitely  greater  national 
importance  than  that  of  the  other  species  ever 
can  be.  Is  it,  then,  to  be  imagined  that  if  this 
machine  had  been  before  discovered,  the  use  of 
it  would  ever  have  been  lost,  or  could  have  been 


ELI  WHITNEY  91 

confined  to  any  tract  or  country  left  unexplored 
by  commercial  enterprise  ?  But  it  is  unnecessary 
to  remark  further  upon  this  subject.  A  number 
of  years  have  elapsed  since  Mr.  Whitney  took 
out  his  patent,  and  no  one  has  produced  or  pre- 
tended to  prove  the  existence  of  a  machine  of 
similar  construction  or  use. 

"  With  regard  to  the  utility  of  this  discovery 
the  court  would  deem  it  a  waste  of  time  to  dwell 
long  upon  this  topic.  Is  there  a  man  who  hears 
us  who  has  not  experienced  its  utility  ?  The 
whole  interior  of  the  Southern  States  was  lan- 
guishing and  its  inhabitants  emigrating  for  want 
of  some  object  to  engage  their  attention  and  em- 
ploy their  industry,  when  the  invention  of  this  ma- 
chine at  once  opened  views  to  them  which  set  the 
whole  country  in  active  motion.  From  child- 
hood to  age  it  has  presented  to  us  a  lucrative 
employment.  Our  debts  have  been  paid  off,  our 
capitals  have  increased,  and  our  lands  trebled 
themselves  in  value.  We  cannot  express  the 
weight  of  the  obligation  which  the  country  owes 
to  this  invention.  The  extent  of  it  cannot  now 
be  seen.  Some  faint  presentiment  may  be 
formed  from  the  reflection  that  cotton  is  rapid- 
ly supplanting  wool,  flax,  silk,  and  even  furs  in 
manufactures,  and  may  one  day  profitably  sup- 
ply the  use  of  specie  in  our  East  India  trade. 
Our  sister  States  also  participate  in  the  benefits 
of  this  invention,  for  besides  affording  the  raw 
material  for  their  manufacturers,  the  bulkiness 
and  quantity  of  the  article  affords  a  valuable 
employment  for  their  shipping." 


92  INVENTORS 

The  influence  of  this  decision,  however,  availed 
Whitney  very  little,  for  the  term  of  his  patent 
had  nearly  expired.  During  Miller's  life  more 
than  sixty  suits  had  been  instituted  in  Georgia, 
and  but  a  single  decision  on  the  merits  of  the 
claim  was  obtained.  In  prosecution  of  his 
troublesome  business,  Whitney  had  made  six 
different  journeys  to  Georgia,  several  of  which 
were  accomplished  by  land  at  a  time  when  the 
difihculties  of  such  journeys  were  exceedingly 
great.  A  gentleman  who  was  well  acquainted 
with  Whitney's  affairs  in  the  South,  and  some- 
times acted  as  his  legal  adviser,  says  that  in  all 
his  experience  in  the  thorny  profession  of  the 
law  he  never  saw  a  case  of  such  perseverance 
under  prosecution.  He  adds  :  "  Nor  do  I  be- 
lieve that  I  ever  knew  any  other  man  who  would 
have  met  them  with  equal  coolness  and  firmness, 
or  who  would  finally  have  obtained  even  the 
partial  success  which  he  did.  He  always  called 
on  me  in  New  York  on  his  way  South  when  go- 
ing to  attend  his  endless  trials  and  to  meet  the 
mischievous  contrivances  of  men  who  seemed 
inexhaustible  in  their  resources  of  evil.  Even 
now,  after  thirty  years,  my  head  aches  to  rec- 
ollect his  narratives  of  new  trials,  fresh  dis- 
appointments, and  accumulated  wrongs." 

In  1798  Whitney  had  become  deeply  impressed 
with  the  uncertainty  of  all  his  hopes  founded 
upon  the  cotton-gin,  and  began  to  think  seriously 
of  devoting  himself  to  some  business  in  which 
his  superior  ingenuity,  seconded  by  uncom- 
mon industry,  would  conduct  him  by  a  slow  but 


ELI   WHITNEY  93 

sure  road  to  a  competent  fortune.  It  may  be 
considered  indicative  of  solid  judgment  and  a 
well-balanced  mind  that  he  did  not,  as  is  so  fre- 
quently the  case  with  men  of  inventive  genius, 
become  so  poisoned  with  the  hopes  of  vast 
wealth  as  to  be  disqualified  for  making  a  reason- 
able provision  for  life  by  the  sober  earnings 
of  private  industry.  The  enterprise  which  he 
selected  in  accordance  with  these  views  was 
the  manufacture  of  arms  for  the  United  States. 
Through  Oliver  Wolcott,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  he  obtained  a  contract  for  the  manu- 
facture of  10,000  stand  of  arms,  4,000  of  which 
were  to  be  delivered  before  the  last  of  Septem- 
ber of  the  ensuing  year,  1799.  Whitney  pur- 
chased for  his  works  a  site  called  East  Rock, 
near  New  Haven,  now  known  as  Whitneyville, 
and  justly  admired  for  the  romantic  beauty  of 
its  scenery.  A  water-fall  offered  the  necessary 
power  for  the  machinery. 

Here  he  began  operations  with  great  zeal.  His 
machinery  Avas  yet  to  be  built,  his  material  col- 
lected, and  even  his  workmen  to  be  taught,  and 
that  in  a  business  with  which  he  was  imperfectly 
acquainted. 

A  severe  winter  retarded  his  operations  and 
rendered  him  incompetent  to  fulfil  the  contract. 
Only  500  instead  of  4,000  stands  were  delivered 
the  first  year,  and  eight  years  instead  of  two 
were  found  necessary  for  completing  the  whole. 
During  the  eight  years  Whitney  was  occupied 
in  performing  this  work,  he  applied  himself  to 
business  with  the  most  exemplary  diligence,  ris- 


94  INVENTORS 

ing  every  morning  as  soon  as  it  was  day,  and  at 
night  setting  everything  in  order  in  all  parts  of 
the  establishment.  His  genius  impressed  itself 
on  every  part  of  the  factory,  extending  even 
to  the  most  common  tools,  most  of  which  re- 
ceived some  peculiar  modification  which  im- 
proved them  in  accuracy  or  efficiency.  His  ma- 
chines for  making  the  several  parts  of  the  musket 
were  made  to  operate  with  the  greatest  possible 
degree  of  uniformity  and  precision.  The  object 
at  which  he  aimed,  and  which  he  fully  accom- 
plished, was  to  make  the  same  parts  of  different 
guns,  as  the  locks,  for  instance,  as  much  like  each 
other  as  the  successive  impressions  of  a  copper- 
plate engraving,  and  it  has  generally  been  con- 
sidered that  Whitney  greatly  improved  the  way 
of  manufacturing  arms  and  laid  his  country 
under  permanent  obligations  by  augmenting 
our  facilities  for  national  defence.  In  1812  he 
made  a  contract  to  manufacture  for  the  United 
States  15,000  stand  of  arms,  and  in  the  mean- 
time a  similar  contract  with  the  State  of  New 
York.  Several  other  persons  made  contracts 
with  the  Government  at  about  the  same  time  and 
attempted  the  manufacture  of  muskets.  The 
result  of  their  efforts  was  a  complete  failure, 
and  in  some  instances  they  expended  a  consider- 
able fortune  in  addition  to  the  amount  received 
for  their  work.  In  1822  Calhoun,  then  Secretary 
of  War,  admitted  in  a  conversation  with  Whit- 
ney that  the  Government  was  saving  $25,000 
a  year  at  the  public  armories  alone  by  his  im- 
provements, and  it  should  be  remembered  that 


ELI  WHITNEY  95 

the  utility  of  Whitney's  labors  during  this  part  of 
his  life  was  not  limited  to  this  particular  business. 
In  1812  Whitney  made  application  to  Congress 
for  the  renewal  of  his  patent  for  the  cotton-gin. 
In  his  memorial  he  presented  the  history  of  the 
struggles  he  had  been  forced  to  make  in  defence 
of  his  rights,  observing  that  he  had  been  unable 
to  obtain  any  decision  on  the  merits  of  his  claim 
until  thirteen  years  of  his  patent  had  expired. 
He  states  also  that  his  invention  had  been  a 
source  of  opulence  to  thousands  of  the  citizens 
of  the  United  States ;  that  as  a  labor-saving 
machine  it  would  enable  one  man  to  perform  the 
work  of  a  thousand  men,  and  that  it  furnished  to 
the  whole  family  of  mankind,  at  a  very  cheap 
rate,  the  most  essential  material  for  their  cloth- 
ing. Although  so  great  advantages  had  already 
been  experienced,  and  the  prospect  of  future 
benefits  was  so  promising,  still,  many  of  those 
whose  interest  had  been  most  promoted  and  the 
value  of  whose  property  had  been  most  enhanced 
by  this  invention,  had  obstinately  persisted  in 
refusing  to  make  any  compensation  to  the  in- 
ventor. From  the  State  in  which  he  had  first 
made,  and  where  he  had  first  introduced  his 
machine,  and  which  had  derived  the  most  signal 
benefits — Georgia — he  had  received  nothing ; 
and  from  no  State  had  he  received  the  amount 
of  half  a  cent  per  pound  on  the  cotton  cleaned 
with  his  machines  in  one  year.  Estimating  the 
value  of  the  labor  of  one  man  at  twenty  cents  a 
day,  the  whole  amount  which  had  been  received 
by  him  for  his  invention  was  not  equal  to  the  value 


96  INVENTORS 

of  the  labor  saved  in  one  hour  by  his  machines 
then  in  use  in  the  United  States.    He  continues : 

"  It  is  objected  that  if  the  patentee  succeeds  in 
procuring  the  renewal  of  his  patent  he  will  be 
too  rich.  There  is  no  probability  that  the  pat- 
entee, if  the  term  of  his  patent  were  extended 
for  twenty  years,  would  ever  obtain  for  his  in- 
vention one-half  as  much  as  many  an  individual 
will  gain  by  the  use  of  it.  Up  to  the  present 
time  the  whole  amount  of  what  he  had  acquired 
from  this  source,  after  deducting  his  expenses, 
does  not  exceed  one-half  the  sum  which  a  single 
individual  has  gained  by  the  use  of  the  machine 
in  one  year.  It  is  true  that  considerable  sums 
have  been  obtained  from  some  of  the  States 
where  the  machine  is  used,  but  no  small  portion 
of  these  sums  has  been  expended  in  prosecuting 
his  claim  in  a  State  where  nothing  has  been  ob- 
tained, and  where  his  machine  has  been  used  to 
the  greatest  advantage." 

Notwithstanding  these  cogent  arguments,  the 
application  was  rejected  by  the  courts.  Some 
liberal-minded  and  enlightened  men  from  the 
cotton  districts  favored  the  petition,  but  a  major- 
ity of  the  members  from  that  part  of  the  Union 
were  warmly  opposed  to  granting  it.  In  a  let- 
ter to  Robert  Fulton,  Whitney  says : 

"  The  difficulties  with  which  I  have  to  contend 
have  originated,  principally,  in  the  want  of  a  dis- 
position in  mankind  to  do  justice.  My  invention 
was  new  and  distinct  from  every  other ;  it  stood 
alone.     It    was   not   interwoven    with    anything 


ELI  WHITNEY  97 

before  known ;  and  it  can  seldom  happen  that  an 
invention  or  improvement  is  so  strongly  marked 
and  can  be  so  clearly  and  specifically  identified ; 
and  I  have  always  believed  that  I  should  have 
no  difficulty  in  causing  my  right  to  be  respected, 
if  it  had  been  less  valuable,  and  been  used  only 
by  a  small  portion  of  the  community.  But  the 
use  of  this  machine  being  immensely  profitable 
to  almost  every  planter  in  the  cotton  districts, 
all  were  interested  in  trespassing  upon  the  patent- 
right,  and  each  kept  the  other  in  countenance. 
Demagogues  made  themselves  popular  by  mis- 
representations and  unfounded  clamors,  both 
against  the  right  and  against  the  law  made  for 
its  protection.  Hence  there  arose  associations 
and  combinations  to  oppose  both.  At  one  time, 
but  few  men  in  Georgia  dared  to  come  into  court 
and  testify  to  the  most  simple  facts  within  their 
knowledge,  relative  to  the  use  of  the  machine.  In 
one  instance  I  had  great  difficulty  in  proving  that 
the  machine  had  been  used  in  Georgia,  although 
at  the  same  moment  there  were  three  separate 
sets  of  this  machinery  in  motion  within  fifty  yards 
of  the  building  in  which  the  court  sat,  and  all  so 
near  that  the  rattling  of  the  wheels  was  distinct- 
ly heard  on  the  steps  of  the  court-house." 

Such  perseverance,  patience,  and  uncommon 
skill  were  not,  however,  to  go  wholly  unre- 
warded. Whitney's  factory  of  arms  in  New 
Haven  made  money  for  him,  and  the  Southern 
States  were  not  all  guilty  of  ingratitude.  More- 
over, in  his  private  life  he  was  extremely  fortu- 
7 


98  INVENTORS 

nate.  In  January,  1817,  he  married  Henrietta 
Edwards,  the  youngest  daughter  of  Judge  Pier- 
pont  Edwards,  of  Connecticut.  A  son  and  three 
daughters  contributed  to  the  sunshine  of  the 
close  of  a  somewhat  stormy  and  eventful  life. 
His  last  years  were  his  happiest.  He  found 
prosperity  and  honor  in  New  Haven,  where  he 
died  on  January  8,  1825,  after  a  tedious  illness. 

In  person  Whitney  was  of  more  than  usual 
height,  with  much  dignity  of  manner  and  an 
open,  pleasant  face.  Among  his  particular 
friends  no  man  was  more  esteemed.  Some  of 
the  earliest  of  his  intimate  associates  were  among 
the  latest.  His  sense  of  honor  was  high,  and  his 
feeling  of  resentment  and  indignation  under  in- 
justice correspondingly  strong.  He  could,  how- 
ever, be  cool  when  his  opponents  were  hot,  and 
his  strong  sense  of  the  injuries  he  had  suffered 
did  not  impair  the  natural  serenity  of  his  temper. 
The  value  of  his  famous  invention  has  so  steadily 
grown  that  its  money  importance  to  this  country 
can  scarcely  be  estimated  in  figures.  His  tomb 
in  New  Haven  is  after  a  model  of  that  of  Scipio, 
at  Rome,  and  bears  the  following  inscription : 

ELI  WHITNEY, 
The  Inventor  of  the  Cotton-Gin. 
of  useful  science  and   arts,  the  efficient  patron 

and  improver, 
in  the  social  relations  of  life,  a  model  of  excel- 
LENCE. 
WHILE    PRIVATE     AFFECTION    WEEPS     AT    HIS     TOMB,     HIS 
COUNTRY    HONORS   HIS   MEMORY. 

BoRN  Dec.  8,  1765.     Died  Jan.  8,  1825. 


IV. 

ELIAS  HOWE. 

In  looking  over  the  history  of  great  inventions 
it  is  remarkable  how  uniformly  those  discoveries 
that  helped  mankind  most  have  been  derided, 
abused,  and  opposed  by  the  very  classes  which 
in  the  end  they  were  destined  to  bless.  Nearly 
every  great  invention  has  had  literally  to  be 
forced  into  popular  acceptance.  The  bowmen 
of  the  Middle  Ages  resisted  the  introduction  of 
the  musket ;  the  sedan-chair  carriers  would  not 
allow  hackney  carriages  to  be  used ;  the  stage- 
coach lines  attempted  by  all  possible  devices  to 
block  the  advance  of  the  railway.  When,  in 
1707,  Dr.  Papin  showed  his  first  rude  conception 
of  a  steamboat,  it  was  seized  by  the  boatmen,  who 
feared  that  it  would  deprive  them  of  a  living. 
Kay  was  mobbed  in  Lancashire  when  he  tried  to 
introduce  his  fly-shuttle ;  Hargreaves  had  his 
spinning-frame  destroyed  b}^  a  Blackburn  mob ; 
Crampton  had  to  hide  his  spinning-mule  in  a 
lumber-room  for  fear  of  a  similar  fate  ;  Arkwright, 
the  inventor  of  the  spinning -frame,  was  de- 
nounced as  the  enemy  of  the  working -classes 
and  his  mill  destroyed  ;  Jacquard  narrowly  es- 
caped being  thrown  into  the  river  Rhone  by  a 
crowd    of  furious  weavers  when  his  new  loom 


Elias  Howe. 


ELIAS  HOWE  101 

was  first  put  into  operation  ;  Cartwright  had  to 
abandon  his  power-loom  for  years  because  of 
the  bitter  animosity  of  the  weavers  toward  it. 
Riots  were  organized  in  Nottingham  against 
the  use  of  the  stocking-loom. 

It  is  not  therefore  surprising  that  the  greatest 
labor-saving  machine  of  domestic  life,  the  sew- 
ing-machine, should  have  been  received  with  any- 
thing but  thanks.  Howe  was  abused,  ridiculed, 
and  denounced  as  the  enemy  of  man,  and  espe- 
cially of  poor  sewing-women,  the  very  class  whose 
toil  he  has  done  so  much  to  lighten.  Curses  in- 
stead of  blessings  were  showered  upon  him  dur- 
ing the  first  years  that  followed  the  successful 
working  of  his  wonderful  machine.  Fortunately 
for  the  inventor,  the  age  of  persecution  had  al- 
most passed,  and  Howe  lived  to  receive  the  re- 
wards he  so  fully  deserved. 

Elias  Howe,  Jr.,  was  born  in  Spencer,  Mass.,  in 
1 8 19.  His  father  Avas  a  farmer  and  miller,  and 
the  eight  children  of  the  family,  as  was  common 
with  all  poor  people  of  the  time,  were  early 
taught  to  do  light  work  of  one  kind  or  another. 
When  Elias  was  six  years  old  he  was  set  with  his 
brothers  and  sisters  at  sticking  wire  teeth  through 
the  leather  straps  used  for  cotton-cards.  When 
older  he  helped  his  father  in  the  .mill,  and  in  sum- 
mer picked  up  a  little  book  knowledge  at  the  dis- 
trict school.  As  a  boy  he  was  frail  in  constitu- 
tion, and  he  was  slightly  lame.  When  eleven 
years  old  he  attempted  farm  labor  for  a  neigh- 
bor, but  was  not  strong  enough  for  it  and  re- 
turned to  his  father's   mill,  where  he  remained 


102  INVENTORS 

until  he  was  sixteen.  It  was  here  that  he  first 
began  to  like  machinery.  A  friend  who  had 
visited  Lowell  gave  him  such  an  account  of  that 
bustling  city  and  its  big  mills  that  young  Howe, 
becoming  dissatisfied,  obtained  his  father's  con- 
sent to  leave,  and  found  employment  in  one  of 
the  Lowell  cotton-mills.  The  financial  crash  of 
1837  stopped  the  looms,  and  Howe  obtained  a 
place  in  a  Cambridge  machine-shop  in  which  his 
cousin,  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  afterward  Governor 
of  Massachusetts,  also  worked.  Howe's  first  job 
happened  to  be  upon  a  new  hemp-carding  ma- 
chine of  Treadwell. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-one  Howe  married  and 
moved  to  Boston,  finding  employment  in  the  ma- 
chine-shop of  Ari  Davis.  He  is  described  as  be- 
ing a  capital  workman,  more  full  of  resources 
than  of  plodding  industry,  however,  and  rather 
apt  to  spend  more  time  in  suggesting  a  better 
way  of  doing  a  job  than  in  following  instructions. 
With  such  a  disposition,  and  inasmuch  as  his  sug- 
gestions were  not  considered  of  value,  he  had 
rather  a  hard  time  of  it.  Three  children  were 
born  to  the  young  couple.  As  Howe's  earnings 
were  slight  and  his  health  none  of  the  best,  his 
wife  tried  to  add  to  the  family  income,  and  at 
evening,  when  Howe  lay  exhausted  upon  the  bed 
after  his  day's  work,  the  young  mother  patiently 
sewed.  Her  toil  was  to  some  purpose.  With 
his  natural  bent  for  mechanics,  Howe  could  not 
be  a  silent  witness  of  this  incessant  and  poorly 
paid  labor  without  becoming  interested  in  afford- 
ing aid.      Moreover,  he  was  constantly  employed 


ELIAS  HOWE  103 

upon  new  spinning  and  weaving  machines  for  do- 
ing work  that  for  thousands  of  years  had  'been 
done  painfully  and  slowly  by  hand.  The  possi- 
bility of  sewing  by  machinery  had  often  been 
spoken  of  before  that  day,  but  the  problem 
seemed  to  present  insuperable  difficulties. 

Elias  Howe  had,  as  we  know,  peculiar  fitness  for 
such  work.  He  had  seen  much  of  inventors  and 
inventions,  and  knew  something  of  the  dangers 
and  disappointments  in  store  for  him.  In  the  in- 
tervals between  important  jobs  at  the  shop  he 
nursed  the  idea  of  a  sewing-machine,  keeping 
his  own  counsel.  In  his  first  rude  attempt  it  ap- 
peared to  him  that  machine-sewing  could  only 
be  accomplished  with  very  coarse  thread  or 
string  ;  fine  thread  would  not  stand  the  strain. 
For  his  first  machine  he  made  a  needle  pointed 
at  both  ends,  with  an  eye  in  the  middle ;  it  was 
arranged  to  work  up  and  down,  carrying  the 
thread  through  at  each  thrust.  It  was  only 
after  more  than  a  year's  work  upon  this  device 
that  he  decided  it  would  not  do.  This  first 
attempt  was  a  sort  of  imitation  of  sewing  by 
hand,  the  machine  following  more  or  less  the 
movements  of  the  hand.  Finally,  after  repeated 
failures,  it  became  plain  to  him  that  something 
radically  different  was  needed,  and  that  there 
must  be  another  stitch,  and  perhaps  another 
needle  or  half  a  dozen  needles,  in  such  a  machine. 
He  then  conceived  the  idea  of  using  two  threads, 
and  making  the  stitch  by  means  of  a  shuttle  and 
a  curved  needle  with  the  eye  near  the  point. 
This  was  the  real  solution  of  the  problem.     In 


104  INVENTORS 

October,  1844,  he  made  a  rough  model  of  his 
first  sewing-machine,  all  of  wood  and  wire,  and 
found  that  it  would  actually  sew. 

In  one  of  the  earliest  accounts  of  the  inven- 
tion it  is  thus  described :  "  He  used  a  needle 
and  a  shuttle  of  novel  construction,  and  com- 
bined them  with  holding  surfaces,  feed  mechan- 
ism, and  other  devices  as  they  had  never  before 
been  brought  together  in  one  machine.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  principal  features  of  Mr.  Howe's  in- 
vention is  the  combination  of  a  grooved  needle 
having  an  eye  near  its  point,  and  vibrating  in  the 
direction  of  its  length,  with  a  side-pointed  shuttle 
for  effecting  a  locked  stitch,  and  forming  with 
the  threads,  one  on  each  side  of  the  cloth,  a  firm 
and  lasting  seam  not  easily  ripped." 

Meanwhile  Howe  had  given  up  work  as  a 
machinist  and  had  moved  to  his  father's  house 
in  Cambridge,  where  the  elder  Howe  had  a 
shop  for  the  cutting  of  palm-leaf  used  in  the 
manufacture  of  hats.  Here  Elias  and  his  little 
family  lived,  and  in  the  garret  the  inventor  put 
up  a  lathe  upon  which  he  made  the  parts  of  his 
sewing-machine.  To  provide  for  his  family  he 
did  such  odd  jobs  as  he  could  find ;  but  it  was 
hard  work  to  get  bread,  to  say  nothing  of  butter, 
and  to  make  matters  worse  his  father  lost  his  shop 
by  fire.  Elias  knew  that  his  sewing-machine 
would  work,  but  he  had  no  money  wherewith  to 
buy  the  materials  for  a  machine  of  steel  and  iron, 
and  without  such  a  machine  he  could  not  hope  to 
interest  capital  in  it.  He  needed  at  least  $500  with 
which  to  prove  the  value  of  his  great  invention. 


ELIAS  HOWE  105 

Fortune  threw  in  his  way  a  coal  and  wood 
dealer  of  Cambridge,  named  Fisher,  who  had 
some  money.  Fisher  liked  the  invention  and 
agreed  to  board  Howe  and  his  family,  to  give 
Howe  a  workshop  in  his  house,  and  to  advance 
the  $500  necessary  for  the  construction  of  a  first 
machine.  In  return  he  was  to  become  a  half 
owner  in  the  patent  should  Howe  succeed  in  ob- 
taining one.  In  December,  1844,  Howe  accord- 
ingly moved  into  Fisher's  house,  and  here  the 
new  marvel  was  brought  into  the  world.  All 
that  winter  Howe  worked  over  his  device  in 
Fisher's  garret,  making  many  changes  as  unfore- 
seen difficulties  arose.  He  worked  all  day,  and 
sometimes  nearly  all  night,  succeeding  by  April, 
1845,  in  sewing  a  seam  four  yards  long  with  his 
machine.  By  the  middle  of  May  the  machine 
was  completed,  and  in  July  Howe  sewed  with  it 
the  seams  of  two  woollen  suits,  one  for  himself 
and  the  other  for  Fisher ;  the  sewing  was  so  well 
done  that  it  promised  to  outlast  the  cloth.  For 
many  years  this  machine  was  exhibited  in  a  shop 
in  New  York.  It  showed  how  completely,  at 
really  the  first  attempt,  Howe  had  mastered  the 
enormous  difficulties  in  his  way.  Its  chief  feat- 
ures are  those  upon  which  were  founded  all  the 
sewing-machines  that  followed. 

Late  in  1845  Howe  obtained  his  first  patent 
and  began  to  take  means  to  introduce  his  sew- 
ing-machine to  the  public.  He  first  offered  it  to 
the  tailors  of  Boston,  who  admitted  its  useful- 
ness, but  assured  him  that  it  would  never  be 
adopted,  as   it    would    ruin  their  trade.     Other 


106  INVENTORS 

efforts  were  equally  unsuccessful ;  the  more  per- 
fectly the  machine  did  its  work,  the  more  obsti- 
nate and  determined  seemed  to  be  the  resistance 
to  it.  Everyone  admitted  and  praised  the  inge- 
nuity of  the  invention,  but  no  one  would  invest  a 
dollar  in  it.  Fisher  became  disheartened  and 
withdrew  from  the  partnership,  and  Howe  and 
his  family  moved  back  into  his  father's  house. 

For  a  time  the  poor  inventor  abandoned  his 
machine  and  obtained  a  place  as  engineer  on  a 
railway,  driving  a  locomotive,  until  his  health 
entirely  broke  down.  Forced  to  turn  again  to 
his  beloved  sewing-machine  for  want  of  anything 
better  to  do,  Howe  decided  to  send  his  brother 
Amasa  to  England  with  a  machine.  Amasa 
reached  London  in  October,  1846,  and  met  a  cer- 
tain William  Thomas,  to  whom  he  explained  the 
invention.  Thomas  was  much  impressed  with 
its  possibilities  and  offered  $1,250  for  the  ma- 
chine and  also  to  engage  Elias  Howe  at  $15  a 
week  if  he  would  enter  his  business  of  umbrella 
and  corset  maker.  This  was  at  least  a  livelihood 
to  the  latter,  and  he  sailed  for  England,  where 
for  the  next  eight  months  he  worked  for  Thomas, 
whom  he  found  an  uncommonly  hard  master. 
He  was  indeed  so  harshly  treated  that,  although 
his  wife  and  three  children  had  arrived  in  Lon- 
don, he  threw  up  his  situation.  For  a  time  his 
condition  was  a  piteous  one.  He  Avas  in  a  strange 
country,  without  friends  or  money.  For  days  at 
a  time  the  little  family  were  without  more  than 
crusts  to  live  upon. 

Believing  that  he  could  struggle  along  better 


ELI  AS  HOWE  107 

alone,  Howe  sent  his  family  home  with  the  first 
few  dollars  that  he  could  obtain  from  the  other 
side  and  remained  in  London.  There  were  cer- 
tain things  which  caused  him  to  hope  for  better 
times  ahead.  But  such  hopes  were  delusive,  it 
seems,  and  after  some  months  of  hardship  he 
followed  his  family  to  this  country,  pawning  his 
model  and  his  patent  papers  in  order  to  obtain 
the  necessary  money  for  the  passage.  As  he 
landed  in  New  York  with  less  than  a  dollar  in  his 
pocket,  he  received  news  that  his  wife  was  dy- 
ing of  consumption  in  Cambridge.  He  had  no 
money  for  travelling  by  rail,  and  he  was  too 
feeble  to  attempt  the  journey  on  foot.  It  took 
him  some  days  to  obtain  the  money  for  his  fare 
to  Boston,  but  he  arrived  in  time  to  be  present 
at  the  death-bed  of  his  wife.  Before  he  could 
recover  from  this  blow  he  had  news  that  the 
ship  by  which  he  had  sent  home  the  few  house- 
hold goods  still  remaining  to  him  had  gone  to 
the  bottom. 

This  was  poor  Howe's  darkest  hour.  Others 
had  seen  the  value  of  the  sewing-machine,  and 
during  his  absence  in  England  several  imitations 
of  it  had  been  made  and  sold  to  great  advantage 
by  unscrupulous  mechanics,  who  had  paid  no  at- 
tention to  the  rights  of  the  inventor.  Such  ma- 
chines were  already  spoken  of  as  wonders  by 
the  newspapers,  and  were  beginning  to  be  used 
in  several  industries.  Howe's  patent  was  so 
strong  that  it  was  not  difficult  to  find  money  to 
defend  it,  once  the  practical  value  of  the  inven- 
tion had  been  well  established,  and  in  August, 


108  INVENTORS 

1850,  he  began  several  suits  to  make  his  rights 
clear.  At  the  same  time  he  moved  to  New 
York,  where  he  began  in  a  small  way  to  man- 
ufacture machines  in  partnership  with  a  busi- 
ness man  named  Bliss,  who  undertook  to  sell 
them. 

It  was  not  until  Howe's  rights  to  the  invention 
had  been  fully  established,  which  was  done  by 
the  decision  of  Judge  Sprague,  in  1854,  that  the 
real  value  of  the  sewing-machine  as  a  money- 
making  venture  began  to  be  apparent ;  and  even 
then  its  great  importance  was  so  little  realized, 
even  by  Bliss,  who  was  in  the  business  and  died 
in  1855,  that  Howe  was  enabled  to  buy  the  inter- 
est of  his  heirs  for  a  small  sum.  It  was  during 
these  efforts  to  introduce  the  sewing-machine 
that  occurred  what  were  known  as  the  sewing- 
machine  riots — disturbances  of  no  special  im- 
portance, however — fomented  by  labor  leaders 
in  the  New  York  shops  in  which  cheap  clothing 
was  manufactured.  Howe's  sewing-machine 
was  denounced  as  a  menace  to  the  thousands  of 
men  and  women  who  worked  in  these  shops,  and 
in  several  establishments  the  first  Howe  machines 
introduced  were  so  injured  by  mischievous  per- 
sons as  to  retard  the  success  of  the  experiment 
for  nearly  a  year.  Failing  to  stop  their  intro- 
duction by  such  means  a  public  demonstration 
against  them  was  organized  and  for  a  time 
threatened  such  serious  trouble  that  some  of  the 
large  shops  gave  up  the  use  of  the  machine ;  but 
in  small  establishments  employing  but  a  few 
workmen  they  continued  to  be  used  and  were 


ELI  AS  HOWE  109 

soon  found  to  be  so  indispensable  that  all  opposi- 
tion faded  away. 

The  patent  suits  forced  upon  Howe  by  a  num- 
ber of  infringers  were  costly  drains  upon  the  in- 
ventor, but  in  the  end  all  other  manufacturers 
were  compelled  to  pay  tribute  to  him,  and  in  six 
years  his  royalties  grew  from  $300  to  more  than 
$200,000  a  year.  In  1863  his  royalties  were  esti- 
mated at  $4,000  a  day.  At  the  Paris  Exposition 
of  1867  he  was  awarded  a  gold  medal  and  the 
ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

Howe's  health,  never  strong,  was  so  thoroughly 
broken  by  the  years  of  struggle  and  hardship  he 
met  with  while  trying  to  introduce  his  machine 
that  he  never  completely  recovered.  If  honors 
and  money  were  any  comfort  to  him,  his  last 
years  must  have  been  happy  ones,  for  his  inven- 
tion made  him  famous,  and  he  had  been  enough 
of  a  workingman  to  recognize  the  blessing  he 
had  conferred  upon  millions  of  women  released 
from  the  slavery  of  the  needle ;  he  had  answered 
Hood's  "  Song  of  the  Shirt."  He  died  on  Oc- 
tober 3,  1867,  at  his  home  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Those  who  knew  Howe  personally  speak  of 
him  as  rather  a  handsome  man,  with  a  head 
somewhat  like  Franklin's  and  a  reserved,  quiet 
manner.  His  bitter  struggle  against  poverty 
and  disease  left  its  impress  upon  him  even  to  the 
last.  One  trait  frequently  mentioned  was  his 
readiness  to  find  good  points  in  the  thousand  and 
one  variations  and  sometimes  improvements 
upon  his  invention.  During  the  years  1858-67, 
when  he  died,  there  were  recorded  nearly  three 


110  INVENTORS 

hundred  patents  affecting  the  sewing-machine, 
taken  out  by  other  inventors.  Howe  was  always 
ready  to  help  along  such  improvements  by  ad- 
vice and  often  by  money.  He  fought  sturdily 
for  his  rights,  but  once  those  conceded  he  was  a 
generous  rival. 


V. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE. 


Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse  was  the  eldest 
son  of  the  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse,  an  eminent 
New  England  divine.  The  Rev.  Samuel  Finley, 
D.D.,  second  president  of  the  College  of  New 


Birthplace  of   S    F.  B.  Morsp,  Built    1775. 

Jersey,  Princeton,  was  his  maternal  great-grand- 
father, after  whom  he  was  named.  Breese  was 
the  maiden  name  of  his  mothen  The  famous  in- 
ventor of  the  telegraph  was  born  at  the  foot  of 
Breed's  Hill,  Charlestown,  Mass.,  April  27,  1791. 


112  INVENTORS 

Dr.  Belknap,  of  Boston,  writing  to  Postmaster- 
General  Hazard,  New  York,  says : 

''Congratulate  the  Monmouth  judge  (Mr. 
Breese,  the  grandfather)  on  the  birth  of  a  grand- 
son. Next  Sunday  he  is  to  be  loaded  with 
names,  not  quite  so  many  as  the  Spanish  am- 
bassador who  signed  the  treaty  of  peace  of  1783, 
but  only  four.  As  to  the  child,  I  saw  him  asleep, 
so  can  say  nothing  of  his  eye,  or  his  genius  peep- 
ing through  it.  He  may  have  the  sagacity  of  a 
Jewish  rabbi,  or  the  profundity  of  a  Calvin,  or 
the  sublimity  of  a  Homer  for  aught  I  know,  but 
time  will  bring  forth  all  things." 

Jedediah  Morse  studied  theology  under  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards.  Before  he  began 
preaching,  and  while  teaching  school  in  New 
Haven,  he  began  his  "  American  Geography," 
which  was  afterward  indentified  with  his  name. 
He  began  his  ministry  at  Norwich,  whence  he 
was  called  back  to  be  tutor  in  Yale.  His  health 
was  inadequate  to  the  work  and  he  went  to 
Georgia,  returning  to  Charlestown,  Mass.,  as 
pastor  of  the  First  Congregational  Church,  on 
the  day  that  Washington  was  inaugurated  as 
President  in  New  York,  April  30,  1789.  Dr. 
Eliot,  speaking  of  Jedediah  Morse,  said  :  ''  What 
an  astonishing  impetus  that  man  has  ! "  Pres- 
ident Dwight  said:  "He  is  as  full  of  resources 
as  an  Qgg  is  of  meat."  Daniel  Webster  spoke  of 
him  as  "  always  thinking,  always  writing,  always 
talking,  always  acting." 

Morse's  mother,  Elizabeth  Anne  Breese,  came 
of  good  Scotch-Irish  stock.     She  was  married  to 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 


113 


Jedediah  Morse  in  1789,  and  was  noted  as  a  calm, 
judicious,  and  thinking  woman,  with  a  will  of  her 
own.  When  the  child,  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse,  was 
four  years  old  he  was  sent  to  school  to  an  old 
lady  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  parsonage. 
She  was  an  invalid,  unable  to  leave  her  chair,  and 


S.  F.  B.  Morse. 

governed  her  unruly  flock  with  a  long  rattan 
which  reached  across  the  small  room  in  which  it 
was  gathered.  One  of  her  punishments  was  pin- 
ning the  culprit  to  her  own  dress,  and  Morse  re- 
marks that  his  first  attempts  at  drawing  were  dis- 
couraged in  this  fashion.  Perhaps  the  fact  that 
he  selected  the  old  lady's  face  as  a  model  had 
something  to  do  with  it.  At  the  age  of  seven  he 
8 


114  INVENTORS 

was  sent  to  school  at  Andover,  where  he  was  fit- 
ted for  entering  Phillips  Academy,  and  prepared 
here  for  Yale,  joining  the  class  of  1807.  When 
he  was  thirteen  years  old,  at  Andover,  he  wrote 
a  sketch  of  Demosthenes  and  sent  it  to  his  father, 
by  whom  it  was  preserved  as  a  mark  of  the 
learning  and  taste  of  the  child.  Dr.  Timothy 
D wight  was  then  president  of  Yale  and  a  warm 
friend  of  the  elder  Morse.  Finley  Morse,  as  he 
was  then  known,  received  therefore  the  deep  per- 
sonal interest  of  Dr.  Dwight.  Jeremiah  Day  was 
professor  of  natural  philosophy  in  Yale  College, 
and  under  his  instruction  Morse  began  the  study 
of  electricity,  receiving  perhaps  those  impres- 
sions that  were  destined  to  produce  so  great  an 
influence  upon  him  and,  through  him,  upon  this 
century.  Professor  Day  was  then  young  and 
ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  science,  kindling  readily 
the  enthusiasm  of  his  students.  He  afterward  be- 
came president  of  the  college.  There  was  at  the 
same  time  in  the  faculty  Benjamin  Silliman,  who 
was  professor  of  chemistry,  and  near  whom  Morse 
resided  for  several  years.  Years  afterward  the 
testimony  of  Professors  Day  and  Silliman  was 
given  in  court,  when  it  was  important,  in  the 
defence  of  his  claim  to  priority  in  the  invention  of 
the  telegraph.  Through  them  Morse  was  able  to 
show  that  he  was  early  interested  in  the  study  of 
chemistry  and  electricity.  During  this  litigation 
Morse  did  not  know  that  there  were  scores  of 
letters,  written  by  him  as  a  young  student  to  his 
father,  among  the  papers  of  Dr  Jedediah  Morse, 
that  would  have  shown  conclusively  his  interest 


8 AMU  EL  F.  B.  MOBSE  115 

and  aptitude  in  these  studies.  The  papers  were 
brought  to  light  when  the  life  of  Morse  by 
Prime  came  to  be  written. 

The  first  part  of  Morse's  life  was  devoted  to 
art.  At  a  very  early  age  he  showed  his  taste  in 
this  direction,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  painted  a 
fairly  good  picture  in  water  colors  of  a  room  in 
his  father's  house,  with  his  parents,  himself,  and 
two  brothers  around  a  table.  This  picture  used 
to  hang  in  his  home  in  New  York  by  the  side  of 
his  last  painting.  From  that  time  his  desire  to  be- 
come an  artist  haunted  him  through  his  collegiate 
life.  In  February,  1 8 1 1 ,  he  painted  a  picture,  now 
in  the  office  of  the  mayor  of  Charlestown,  Mass., 
depicting  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Ply- 
mouth, which,  with  a  landscape  painted  at  about 
the  same  time,  decided  his  father,  by  the  advice  of 
Stuart,  to  permit  him  to  visit  Europe  with  Wash- 
ington Allston.  He  bore  letters  to  West  and  to 
Copley,  from  both  of  whom  he  received  the 
kindest  attention  and  encouragement. 

As  a  test  for  his  fitness  for  a  place  as  student 
in  the  Royal  Academy,  Morse  made  a  drawing 
from  a  small  cast  of  the  Farnese  Hercules.  He 
took  this  to  West,  who  examined  the  drawing 
carefully  and  handed  it  back,  saying :  '^  Very 
well,  sir,  very  well ;  go  on  and  finish  it."  "  It 
is  finished,"  said  the  expectant  student.  "Oh, 
no,"  said  the  president.  "  Look  here,  and  here, 
and  here,"  pointing  out  many  unfinished  places 
which  had  escaped  the  eye  of  the  young  artist. 
Morse  quickly  observed  the  defects,  spent  a  week 
in  further  perfecting  his  drawing,  and  then  took 


116  INVENTORS 

it  to  West,  conjEdent  that  it  was  above  criticism. 
The  venerable  president  of  the  Academy  be- 
stowed more  praise  than  before  and,  with  a  pleas- 
ant smile,  handed  it  back  to  Morse,  saying : 
''  Very  well,  indeed,  sir.  Go  on  and  finish  it."  "  Is 
it  not  finished?"  inquired  the  almost  discouraged 
student.  "  See,"  said  West,  "  you  have  not 
marked  that  muscle,  nor  the  articulation  of  the 
finger-joints."  Three  days  more  were  spent 
upon  the  drawing,  when  it  was  taken  back  to  the 
implacable  critic.  "  Very  clever,  indeed,"  said 
West ;  *'  very  clever.  Now  go  on  and  finish  it." 
''  I  cannot  finish  it,"  Morse  replied,  when  the  old 
man,  patting  him  on  the  shoulder,  said :  *'  Well, 
I  have  tried  you  long  enough.  Now,  sir,  you 
have  learned  more  by  this  drawing  than  you 
would  have  accomplished  in  double  the  time  by 
a  dozen  half-finished  beginnings.  It  is  not  many 
drawings,  but  the  character  of  one  which  makes 
a  thorough  draughtsman.  Finish  one  picture, 
sir,  and  you  are  a  painter." 

Morse  heeded  this  advice.  He  went  to  work 
with  Allston,  and  encouraged  by  the  veteran, 
Copley,  he  began  upon  a  large  picture  for  exhi- 
bition in  the  Royal  Academy,  choosing  as  his 
subject  ''  The  Dying  Hercules."  He  modelled 
his  figure  in  clay,  as  the  best  of  the  old  painters 
did.  It  was  his  first  attempt  in  the  sculptor's  art. 
^  The  cast  was  made  in  plaster  and  taken  to  West, 
who  was  delighted  with  it.  This  model  con- 
tended for  the  prize  of  a  gold  medal  offered  by 
the  Society  of  Arts  for  the  best  original  cast  of 
a  single  figure,  and  won  it.     In  the  large  room  of 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  117 

the  London  Adelphi,  in  the  presence  of  the 
British  nobility,  foreign  ambassadors,  and  distin- 
guished strangers,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  publicly 
presented  the  medal  to  Morse  on  May  13,  181 3. 
At  the  same  time  the  painting  from  this  model, 
then  on  exhibition  at  the  Royal  Academy,  re- 
ceived great  praise  from  the  critics,  who  placed 
"  The  Dying  Hercules  "  among  the  first  twelve 
pictures  in  a  collection  of  almost  two  thousand. 

This  was  an  extraordinary  success  for  so  young 
a  man,  and  Morse  determined  to  try  for  the  high- 
est prize  offered  by  the  Royal  Academy  for  the 
best  historical  composition,  the  decision  to  be 
made  in  181 5.  For  that  purpose  he  produced 
his  "  Judgment  of  Jupiter  "  in  July  of  that  year. 
West  assured  him  that  it  would  take  the  prize, 
but  Morse  was  unable  to  comply  with  the  rules 
of  the  Academy,  which  required  the  victor  to 
receive  the  medal  in  person.  His  father  had 
summoned  him  home.  West  urged  the  Acad- 
emy to  make  an  exception  in  his  case,  but  it 
could  not  be  done,  and  the  young  painter  had  to 
be  contented  with  his  assurances  that  he  would 
certainly  have  won  the  prize  (a  gold  medal  and 
$250)  had  he  remained. 

West  was  always  kind  to  Americans,  and 
Morse  was  a  favorite  with  him.  One  day,  when 
the  venerable^  painter  was  at  work  upon  his  great 
picture,  *'  Christ  Rejected,"  after  carefully  ex- 
amining Morse's  hands  and  noting  their  beauty, 
he  said  :  "  Let  me  tie  you  with  this  cord  and 
take  that  place  while  I  paint  in  the  hands  of  the 
Saviour."     This  was  done,  and  when  he  released 


118  INVENTORS 

the  young  artist,  he  said  to  him  :  ''  You  may  now 
say,  if  you  please,  that  you  had  a  hand  in  this  pict- 
ure." A  number  of  noted  English  artists — Tur- 
ner, Northcote,  Sir  James  Lawrence,  Flaxman — 
and  literary  men — Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Rog- 
ers, and  Crabbe  among  them — were  attracted 
by  young  Morse's  proficiency  and  pleasant  man- 
ners, and  when  in  August,  1815,  he  packed  his 
picture,  ''  The  Judgment  of  Jupiter,"  and  sailed 
for  home,  he  bore  with  him  the  good  wishes  of 
some  of  England's  most  distinguished  men. 

When  Morse  reached  Boston,  althouglT  but 
twenty-four  years  old,  he  found  that  fame  had 
preceded  him.  His  prestige  was  such  that  he 
set  up  his  easel  with  high  hopes  and  fair  pros- 
pects for  the  future,  both  destined  soon  to  be 
dispelled.  The  taste  of  America  had  not  risen 
to  the  appreciation  of  historical  pictures.  His 
original  compositions  and  his  excellent  copies  of 
the  masterpieces  of  the  Old  World  excited  the 
admiration  of  cultured  people,  but  no  orders 
were  given  for  them.  He  left  Boston  almost 
penniless  after  having  waited  for  months  for  pat- 
ronage, and  determined  to  try  to  earn  his  bread 
by  painting  the  portraits  of  people  in  the  rural 
districts  of  New  England,  where  his  father's 
name  was  a  household  word.  During  the  autumn 
of  1 8 16  and  the  winter  of  1816-1817  he  visited 
several  towns  in  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont, 
painting  portraits  in  Walpole,  Hanover,  Wind- 
sor, Portsmouth,  and  Concord.  He  received  the 
modest  sum  of  $15  for  each  portrait.  From 
Concord,  N.  H.,  he  writes  to  his  parents :  "  I  am 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  119 

still  here  (August  i6th)  and  am  passing  my  time 
very  agreeably.  I  have  painted  five  portraits  at 
$15  each,  and  have  two  more  engaged  and  many 
talked  of.  I  think  I  shall  get  along  well.  I  be- 
lieve I  could  make  an  independent  fortune  in  a 
few  years  if  I  devoted  myself  exclusively  to  por- 
traits, so  great  is  the  desire  for  good  portraits  in 
the  different  country  towns."  He  doubtless  was 
candid  when  he  wrote  that  he  was  "  passing  his 
time  in  Concord  very  agreeably,"  for  it  was  here 
that  he  met  Lucretia  P.  Walker,  who  was  ac- 
counted the  most  beautiful  and  accomplished 
young  lady  of  the  town,  whom  Morse  subse- 
quently married.  She  was  a  young  woman  of 
great  personal  loveliness  and  rare  good  sense. 
The  young  artist  was  attracted  by  her  beauty, 
her  sweetness  of  temper,  and  high  intellectual 
qualities.  All  the  letters  that  she  wrote  to  him 
before  and  after  their  marriage  he  carefully  pre- 
served, and  these  are  witnesses  to  her  intelli- 
gence, education,  tenderness  of  feeling,  and  ad- 
mirable fitness  to  be  the  wife  of  such  a  man. 
Gradually  Morse's  portraits  became  so  much  in 
demand  that  he  was  enabled  to  increase  his  price 
to  $60,  and  as  he  painted  four  a  week  upon  the 
average,  and  received  a  good  deal  of  money  dur- 
ing a  tour  in  the  South,  he  was  enabled  to  return 
to  New  England  in  1818  with  $3,000,  and  to 
marry  Miss  Walker  on  October  6th  of  that  year. 
The  first  years  of  Morse'  s  married  life  were 
passed  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  after  which  he  re- 
turned to  New  England,  and  having  laid  by 
some  little    capital,   he  took  up  again   what  he 


120  INVENTORS 

deemed  to  be  his  real  vocation — the  painting  of 
great  historical  pictures.  His  first  venture  in 
this  direction  was  an  exhibition  picture  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  at  Washington.  As  a 
business  venture  it  was  disastrous,  and  resulted 
in  the  loss  of  eighteen  months  of  precious  time. 
It  was  finally  sold  to  an  Englishman.  Then  be- 
gan Morse's  life  in  New  York.  Through  the  in- 
fluence of  Isaac  Lawrence  he  obtained  a  commis- 
sion from  the  city  authorities  of  New  York  to 
paint  a  full-length  portrait  of  Lafayette,  who  was 
then  in  this  country.  He  had  just  completed 
his  study  from  life  in  Washington  in  February, 
1825,  when  he  received  the  news  of  the  death  of 
his  wife.  A  little  more  than  a  year  afterward 
both  his  father  and  mother  died.  Thencefor- 
ward his  children  and  art  absorbed  his  affections. 
He  was  an  artist,  heart  and  soul,  and  his 
professional  brethren  soon  had  good  reason  to 
be  grateful  to  him.  The  American  Academy  of 
Fine  Arts,  then  under  the  presidency  of  Colonel 
John  Trumbull,  was  in  a  languishing  state  and  of 
little  use  to  artists.  The  most  advanced  of  its 
members  felt  the  need  of  relief,  and  a  few  of 
them  met  at  Morse's  rooms  to  discuss  their 
troubles.  At  that  meeting  Morse  proposed  the 
formation  of  a  new  society  of  artists,  and  at  a 
meeting  held  at  the  New  York  Historical  Socie- 
ty's rooms  the  "  New  York  Drawing  Association  " 
was  organized,  with  Morse  as  its  president. 
Trumbull  endeavored  to  compel  the  new  society 
to  profess  allegiance  to  the  academy,  but  Morse 
protested,  and  thanks  to  his  advice,  on  January 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 


121 


1 8,  1826,  a  new  art  association  was  organized 
under  the  name  of  the  "  National  Academy  of 
Design."  Morse  was  its  first  president,  and  for 
sixteen  years  he  was  annually  elected  to  that 
office.  The  friends  of  the  old  academy  were 
wrathful  and  assailed  the  new  association.  A 
war  of  words,  in  which  Morse  acted  as  the  cham- 


Under  Side  of  a  Modern  Switchboard,  showing  2,000  Wires. 


pion  of  the  new  society,  was  waged  until  victory 
was  conceded  to  the  reformers.  Thus  Morse 
inaugurated  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  fine 
arts  in  this  country.  He  wrote,  talked,  lectured 
incessantly  for  the  advancement  of  art  and  the 
Academy  of  Design. 

In  1829  Morse  made  a  second  visit  to  Europe, 
where  he  was  warmly  welcomed  and  honored  by 


122  INVENTOBS 

the  Royal  Academy.  During  three  years  or 
more  he  lived  in  continental  cities,  studying  the 
Louvre  in  Paris  and  making  of  the  famous  gaL 
lery  an  exhibition  picture  which  contained  about 
fifty  miniatures  of  the  works  in  that  collection. 
In  November,  1832,  he  was  back  again  in  New 
York,  with  high  hopes  as  to  his  future.  Allston, 
writing  to  Dunlap  in  1834,  said:  *' I  rejoice  to 
hear  your  report  of  Morse's  advance  in  his  art. 
I  know  what  is  in  him  perhaps  better  than  any- 
one else.  If  he  will  only  bring  out  all  that  is 
there  he  will  show  parts  that  many  now  do  not 
dream  of." 

For  several  years  the  thoughts  of  the  artist 
Morse  had  been  busy  with  a  matter  wholly  out- 
side of  his  chosen  domain.  Some  lectures  on 
electro-magnetism  by  his  intimate  friend.  Judge 
Freeman  Dana,  given  at  the  Athenaeum  while 
Morse  was  also  lecturing  there  on  the  fine  arts, 
had  greatly  interested  him  in  the  subject,  and  he 
learned  much  in  conversation  with  Dana.  While 
on  his  second  visit  to  Europe  Morse  made  him- 
self acquainted  with  the  labors  of  scientific  men 
in  their  endeavors  to  communicate  intelligence 
between  far-distant  places  by  means  of  electro- 
magnetism,  and  he  saw  an  electro-magnet  signal- 
ling instrument  in  operation.  He  knew  that  so 
early  as  1649  a  Jesuit  priest  had  prophesied  an 
electric  telegraph,  and  that  for  half  a  century  or 
more  students  had  partially  succeeded  in  at- 
tempts of  this  kind.  But  no  practical  telegraph 
had  yet  been  invented.  In  1774  Le  Sage  made 
an  electro-signalling  instrument  with  twenty -four 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  123 

wires,  one  for  each  letter  of  the  alphabet.  In 
1825  Sturgeon  invented  an  electro-magnet.  In 
1830  Professor  Henry  increased  the  magnetic 
force  that  Morse  afterward  used. 

On  board  the  ship  Sully,  in  which  Morse 
sailed  from  Havre  to  New  York,  in  the  autumn 
of  1832,  the  recent  discovery  in  France  of  the 
means  of  obtaining  an  electric  spark  from  a  mag- 
net was  a  favorite  topic  of  conversation  among 
the  passengers,  and  it  was  during  the  voyage 
that  Morse  conceived  the  idea  of  an  electro-mag- 
netic and  chemical  recording  telegraph.  Before 
he  reached  New  York  he  had  made  drawings 
and  specifications  of  his  conception,  which  he  ex- 
hibited to  his  fellow  passengers.  Few  great  in- 
ventions that  have  made  their  authors  immortal 
were  so  completely  grasped  at  inception  as  this. 
Morse  was  accustomed  to  keep  small  note-books 
in  which  to  make  records  of  his  work,  and  scores 
of  these  books  are  still  in  existence.  As  he 
sat  upon  the  deck  of  the  Sully,  one  night 
after  dinner,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  one  of 
these  books  and  began  to  make  marks  to  repre- 
sent letters  and  figures  to  be  produced  by  elec- 
tricity at  a  distance.  The  mechanism  by  which 
the  results  were  to  be  reached  was  wrought  out 
by  slow  and  laborious  thought,  but  the  vision  as 
a  whole  was  clear.  The  current  of  electricity 
passed  instantaneously  to  any  distance  along  a 
wire,  but  the  current  being  interrupted,  a  spark 
appeared.  This  spark  represented  one  sign  ;  its 
absence  another ;  the  time  of  its  absence  still 
another.     Here  are  three  signs  to  be  combined 


124  INVENTORS 

into  the  representation  of  figures  or  letters. 
They  can  be  made  to  form  an  alphabet.  Words 
may  thus  be  indicated.  A  telegraph,  an  instru- 
ment to  record  at  a  distance,  will  result.  Conti- 
ents  shall  be  crossed.  This  great  and  wide  sea 
shall  be  no  barrier.  "  If  it  will  go  ten  miles 
without  stopping,"  he  said,  "  I  can  make  it  go 
around  the  globe." 

He  worked  incessantly  all  that  next  day  and 
could  not  sleep  at  night  in  his  berth.  In  a  few 
days  he  submitted  some  rough  drafts  of  his 
invention  to  William  C.  Rives,  of  Virginia,  who 
was  returning  from  Paris,  where  he  had  been 
minister  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Rives  sug- 
gested various  difficulties,  over  Avhich  Morse 
spent  several  sleepless  nights,  announcing  in  the 
morning  at  breakfast-table  the  new  devices  by 
which  he  proposed  to  accomplish  the  task  before 
him.  He  exhibited  a  drawing  of  the  instrument 
which  he  said  would  do  the  work,  and  so  com- 
pletely had  he  mastered  all  the  details  that  five 
years  afterward,  when  a  model  of  this  instru- 
ment was  constructed,  it  was  instantly  recognized 
as  the  one  he  had  devised  and  drawn  in  his 
sketch-book  and  exhibited  to  his  fellow  passen- 
gers on  the  ship.  In  view  of  subsequent  claims 
made  by  a  fellow  passenger  to  the  honor  of  hav- 
ing suggested  the  telegraph,  these  details  are  in- 
teresting and  important. 

Circumstances  delayed  the  construction  of  a 
recording  telegraph  by  Morse,  but  the  subject 
slumbered  in  his  mind.  During  his  absence 
abroad   he   had   been   elected   professor   of  the 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOUSE 


125 


literature  of  the  arts  of  design,  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  City  of  New  York,  and  this  work  oc- 
cupied his  attention  for  some  time.  Three  years 
afterward,  in  November,  1835,  he  completed 
a  rude  telegraph  instrument — the  first  recording 


The  First  Telegraphic  Instrumerrt,  as  Exhibited  in    1837  by  Morse. 

apparatus  ;  but  it  embodied  the  mechanical  prin- 
ciple now  in  use  the  world  over.  His  whole 
plan  was  not  completed  until  July,  1837,  when  by 
means  of  two  instruments  he  was  able  to  com- 
municate from  as  well  as  to  a  distant  point.  In 
September  hundreds  of  people  saw  the  new 
instrument  in  operation  at  the  university,  most 
of  whom  looked  upon  it  as  a  scientific  toy  con- 


126  INVENTORS 

structed  by  an  unfortunate  dreamer.  The  fol- 
lowing year  the  invention  was  sufficiently  per- 
fected to  enable  Morse  to  direct  the  attention  of 
Congress  to  it  and  ask  its  aid  in  the  construction 
of  an  experimental  line  between  Washington  and 
Baltimore. 

Late  in  the  long  session  of  1838  he  appeared 
before  that  body  with  his  instrument.  Before 
leaving  New  York  with  it  he  had  invited  a  few 
friends  to  see  it  work.  Now  began  in  the  life  of 
Morse  a  period  of  years  during  which  his  whole 
time  was  devoted  to  convincing  the  w^orld,  first, 
that  his  electric  telegraph  would  really  commu- 
nicate messages,  and,  secondly,  that  if  it  worked 
at  all,  it  was  of  great  practical  value.  Strange 
to  sav  that  this  required  any  argument  at  all. 
But  that  in  those  days  it  did  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  ]^Iorse  could  then  find  no  help 
far  or  near.  His  invention  was  regarded  as  inter- 
esting, but  of  no  importance  either  scientifically 
or  commercially.  In  Washington,  where  he  first 
went,  he  found  so  little  encouragement  that  he 
went  to  Europe  with  the  hope  of  drawing  the 
attention  of  foreign  governments  to  the  advan- 
tages, and  of  securing  patents  for  the  invention  ; 
he  had  filed  a  caveat  at  the  Patent  Of^ce  in  this 
country.  His  mission  was  a  failure.  England 
refused  him  a  patent,  and  France  gave  him  only 
a  useless  paper  which  assured  for  him  no  special 
privileges.  He  returned  home  disappointed  but 
not  discouraged,  and  waited  four  years  longer 
before  he  again  attempted  to  interest  Congress 
in  his  invention. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  127 

This  extraordinary  struggle  lasted  twelve 
years,  during  which,  with  his  mind  absorbed  in 
one  idea  and  yet  almost  wholly  dependent  for 
bread  upon  his  profession  as  an  artist,  it  was  im- 


OOM 


The    Modern    M-rse   Telegraph. 

possible  to  pursue  art  with  the  enthusiasm  and 
industry  essential  to  success.  His  situation  was 
forlorn  in  the  extreme.  The  father  of  three  little 
children,  now  motherless,  his  pecuniary  means 
exhausted  by  his  residence  in  Europe,  and  un- 
able to  pursue  art  without  sacrificing  his  inven- 
tion, he  was  at  his  wits'  ends.  He  had  visions 
of  usefulness  by  the  invention  of  a  telegraph  that 
should  bring  the  continents  of  the  earth  into 
intercourse.  He  was  poor  and  knew  that  wealth 
as  well  as  fame  was  within  his  reach.  He  had 
long  received  assistance  from  his  father  and 
brothers  when  his  profession  did  not  supply  the 
needed  means  of  support  for  himself  and  family ; 
but  it  seemed  like  robbery  to  take  the  money  of 
others  for  experiments,  the  success  of  Avhich  he 
could  not  expect  them  to  believe  in  until  he 
could  give  practical  evidence  that  the  instrument 
would  do  the  work  proposed.  It  was  the  old 
story  of  genius  contending  with  poverty.  His 
brothers    comforted,    encouraged,   and    cheered 


128  INVENT0B8 

him.  In  the  house  of  his  brother  Richard  he 
found  a  home  and  the  tender  care  that  he  re- 
quired. Sidney,  the  other  brother,  also  helped 
him.  On  the  corner  of  Nassau  and  Beekman 
Streets,  now  the  site  of  the  handsome  Morse 
Building,  his  brothers  erected  a  building  where 
were  the  offices  of  the  newspaper  of  which  they 
were  the  editors  and  proprietors.  In  the  fifth 
story  of  this  building  a  room  was  assigned  to 
him  which  was  for  several  years  his  studio, 
bedroom,  parlor,  kitchen,  and  workshop.  On 
one  side  of  the  room  stood  a  little  cot  on  which 
he  slept  in  the  brief  hours  which  he  allowed 
himself  for  repose.  On  the  other  side  stood  his 
lathe  with  which  the  inventor  turned  the  brass 
apparatus  necessary  in  the  construction  of  his 
instruments.  He  had,  with  his  own  hands,  first 
whittled  the  model ;  then  he  made  the  moulds  for 
the  castings.  Here  were  brought  to  him,  day 
by  day,  crackers  and  the  simplest  food,  by  which, 
with  tea  prepared  by  himself,  he  sustained  life 
while  he  toiled  incessantly  to  give  being  to  the 
idea  that  possessed  him. 

Before  leaving  for  Europe  he  had  suffered  a 
great  disappointment  as  an  artist.  The  govern- 
ment had  offered  to  American  artists,  to  be  se- 
lected by  a  committee  of  Congress,  commissions 
to  paint  pictures  for  the  panels  in  the  rotunda  of 
the  Capitol.  Morse  was  anxious  to  be  employed 
upon  one  or  more  of  them.  He  was  the  presi- 
dent of  the  National  Academy  of  Design,  and 
there  Avas  an  eminent  fitness  in  calling  him  to 
this  national  work.     Allston  urged  the  appoint- 


Morse  Making  his  own  Instrument. 
(From  Prime's  Life  of  Morse.) 


130  INVENTORS 

ment  of  Morse.  John  Quincy  Adams,  then  a 
member  of  the  House  and  on  the  committee  to 
whom  this  subject  was  referred,  submitted  a 
resolution  in  the  House  that  foreign  artists  be 
allowed  to  compete  for  these  commissions,  and 
in  support  alleged  that  there  were  no  American 
artists  competent  to  execute  the  paintings.  This 
gave  great  and  just  offence  to  the  artists  and  the 
public.  A  severe  reply  to  Adams  appeared  in 
the  New  York  Evening  Post,  It  was  written  by 
James  Fenimore  Cooper,  but  it  was  attributed 
to  Morse,  whose  pen  was  well  known  to  be  skil- 
ful, and  in  consequence  his  name  was  rejected 
by  the  committee.  He  never  recovered  fully 
from  the  effects  of  that  blow.  Forty  years  after- 
ward he  could  not  speak  of  it  without  emotion. 
He  had  consecrated  years  of  his  life  to  the 
preparation  for  just  such  work. 

It  was  well  for  him  and  for  his  country  and 
the  world  that  the  artist  in  Morse  was  disap- 
pointed. From  painter  he  became  inventor,  and 
from  that  time  until  the  world  acknowledged 
the  greatness  and  importance  of  his  invention 
he  turned  not  back.  His  appointment  as  pro- 
fessor in  the  City  University  entitled  him  to  cer- 
tain rooms  in  the  University  Building  looking 
out  upon  Washington  Square,  and  here  the  first 
working  models  of  the  telegraph  were  brought 
into  existence. 

"  There,"  he  says,  "  I  immediately  com- 
menced, with  very  limited  means,  to  experiment 
upon  my  invention.  My  first  instrument  was 
made  up  of  an  old  picture  or  canvas  frame  fas- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 


131 


tened  to  a  table ;  the  wheels  of  an  old  wooden 
clock,  moved  by  a  weight  to  carry  the  paper 
forward ;  three  wooden  drums,  upon  one  of 
which  the  paper  was  wound  and  passed  over 
the  other  two ;  a  wooden  pendulum  suspended 
to  the  top  piece  of  the  picture  or  stretching 
frame  and  vibrating  across  the  paper  as  it 
passes  over  the  centre  wooden  drum ;  a  pencil 


Train  Telegraph — the  message  transmitted  by  induction  from  the  moving  train  to 
the  single  wire. 

at  the  lower  end  of  the  pendulum,  in  contact 
with  the  paper ;  an  electro-magnet  fastened  to  a 
shelf  across  the  picture  or  stretching  frame,  op- 
posite to  an  armature  made  fast  to  the  pendu- 
lum ;  a  type  rule  and  type  for  breaking  the 
circuit,  resting  on  an  endless  band,  composed  of 
carpet-binding,  which  passed  over  two  wooden 
rollers  moved  by  a  wooden  crank. 

"Up  to  the  autumn  of    1837  ^^J  telegraphic 
apparatus  existed  in  so  rude  a  form  that  I  felt  a 


132 


INVENTORS 


reluctance  to  have  it  seen.  My  means  were  very 
limited — so  limited  as  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  constructing  an  apparatus  of  such  mechanical 


Interior  of  a  Car  on  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad,  showing  the  Method  of  Operating 
the  Train  Telegraph. 

finish  as  to  warrant  my  success  in  venturing 
upon  its  public  exhibition.  I  had  no  wish  to  ex- 
pose to  ridicule  the  representative  of  so  many 
hours  of  laborious  thought.  Prior  to  the  sum- 
mer of  1837,  at  which  time  Mr.  Alfred  Vail's  at- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  1 33 

tention  became  attracted  to  my  telegraph,  I 
depended  upon  my  pencil  for  subsistence.  In- 
deed, so  straitened  were  m}^  circumstances  that, 
in  order  to  save  time  to  carry  out  my  invention 
and  to  economize  my  scanty  means,  I  had  for 
many  months  lodged  and  eaten  in  my  studio, 
procuring  my  food  in  small  quantities  from  some 
grocery  and  preparing  it  myself.  To  conceal 
from  my  friends  the  stinted  manner  in  which  I 
lived,  I  was  in  the  habit  of  bringing  my  food  to 
my  room  in  the  evenings,  and  this  was  my  mode 
of  life  for  many  years." 

Before  the  telegraph  was  actually  tried  and 
practised  the  cumbersome  piano-key  board  de- 
vised by  Morse  in  his  first  experiments  was  done 
away  with  and  the  simple  device  of  a  single  key, 
with  which  we  are  all  familiar,  was  adopted. 
Meantime  Morse  was  practically  abandoning  art. 
His  friends  among  the  profession  had  subscribed 
$3,000  in  order  to  enable  him  to  paint  the  picture 
he  had  in  mind  when  he  applied  for  the  govern- 
ment work  at  Washington,  "■  The  Signing  of  the 
First  Compact  on  Board  the  Mayflower,"  and  he 
undertook  the  commission  in  1838,  only  to  give 
it  up  in  1 841  and  to  return  to  the  subscribers  the 
amount  paid  with  interest. 

While  Morse  had  been  in  Paris,  in  1839,  ^^  had 
heard  of  Daguerre,  who  had  discovered  the 
method  of  fixing  the  image  of  the  camera,  which 
feat  was  then  creating  a  great  sensation  among 
scientific  men.  Professor  Morse  was  anxious  to 
see  the  results  of  this  discovery  before  leaving 
Paris,  and  the  American  consul,  Robert  Walsh, 


134: 


INVENTORS 


arranged  an  interview  between  the  two  inven- 
tors. Daguerre  promised  to  send  to  Morse  a 
copy  of  the  descriptive  publication  which  he  in- 
tended to  make  so  soon  as  a  pension  he  expected 
from  the  French  Government  for  the  disclosure 
of  his  discovery  should  be  secured.     He  kept  his 


Diagram  showing  the  Method  of  Telegraphing  from  a  Moving  Train  by  Induction, 

promise,  and  Morse  was  probably  the  first  recipi- 
ent of  the  pamphlet  in  this  country.  From  the 
drawings  it  contained  he  constructed  the  first 
photographic  apparatus  made  in  the  United 
States,  and  from  a  back  window  in  the  Univer- 
sity Building  he  obtained  a  good  representation 
of  the  tower  of  the  Church  of  the  Messiah  on 
Broadway.     This  possesses  an  historical  interest 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  135 

as  being  the  first  photograph  in  America.  It  was 
on  a  plate  the  size  of  a  playing-card.  With  Pro- 
fessor J.  W.  Draper,  in  a  studio  built  on  the  roof 
of  the  University,  he  succeeded  in  taking  like- 
nesses of  the  living  human  face.  His  subjects 
were  compelled  to  sit  fifteen  minutes  in  the 
bright  sunlight,  with  their  eyes  closed,  of 
course.  Professor  Draper  shortened  the  process 
and  was  the  first  to  take  portraits  with  the  eyes 
open. 

At  the  session  of  Congress  of  1 842-1 843  Morse 
again  appeared  with  his  telegraph,  and  on  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1843,  John  P.  Kennedy,  of  Maryland, 
moved  that  a  bill  appropriating  $30,000,  to  be  ex- 
pended, under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  in  a  series  of  experiments  for  test- 
ing the  merits  of  the  telegraph,  should  be  consid- 
ered. The  proposal  met  with  ridicule.  John- 
son, of  Tennessee,  moved,  as  an  amendment,  that 
one-half  should  be  given  to  a  lecturer  on  mes- 
merism, then  in  Washington,  to  try  mesmeric  ex- 
periments under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury;  and  Mr.  Houston  said  that 
Millerism  ought  to  be  included  in  the  benefits  of 
the  appropriation.  After  the  indulgence  of 
much  cheap  wit,  Mr.  Mason,  of  Ohio,  protested 
against  such  frivolity  as  injurious  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  House  and  asked  the  chair  to  rule  the 
amendments  out  of  order.  The  chair  (John 
White,  of  Kentucky)  ruled  the  amendments  in 
order  because  "  it  would  require  a  scientific 
analysis  to  determine  how  far  the  magnetism  of 
the  mesmerism  was  analogous  to  that  to  be  em- 


136  INVENTORS 

ployed  in  telegraphy."  This  wit  was  applauded 
by  peals  of  laughter,  but  the  amendment  was 
voted  down  and  the  bill  passed  the  House  on 
February  23d  by  the  close  vote  of  89  to  83.  In 
the  Senate  the  bill  met  with  neither  sneers  nor 
opposition,  but  its  progress  was  discouragingly 
slow.  At  twilight  on  the  last  evening  of  the 
session  (March  3,  1842)  there  were  one  hundred 
and  nineteen  bills  before  it.  It  seemed  impossi- 
ble for  it  to  be  reached  in  regular  course  before 
the  hour  of  adjournment  should  arrive,  and 
Morse,  who  had  anxiously  watched  the  dreary 
course  of  business  all  day  from  the  gallery  of  the 
Senate  chamber,  went  with  a  sad  heart  to  his 
hotel  and  prepared  to  leave  for  New  York  at  an 
early  hour  the  next  morning.  His  cup  of  disap- 
pointment seemed  to  be  about  full.  With  the 
exception  of  Alfred  Vail,  a  young  student  in  the 
University,  through  whose  influence  some  money 
had  been  subscribed  in  return  for  a  one-fourth 
interest  in  the  invention,  and  of  Professor  L.  D. 
Gale,  who  had  shown  much  interest  in  the  work 
and  was  also  a  partner  in  the  enterprise,  Morse 
knew  of  no  one  who  seemed  to  believe  enough 
in  him  and  his  telegraph  to  advance  another 
dollar. 

As  he  came  down  to  breakfast  the  next  morn- 
ing a  young  lady  entered  and  came  forward 
with  a  smile,  exclaiming,  "  I  have  come  to  con- 
gratulate you."  "Upon  what?"  inquired  the 
professor.  "  Upon  the  passage  of  your  bill," 
she  replied.  ''  Impossible  !  Its  fate  was  sealed 
last   evening.     You  must  be   mistaken."     "  Not 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  137 

at  all,"  answered  the  young  lady,  the  daughter 
of  Morse's  friend,  the  Commissioner  of  Patents, 
H.  L.  Ellsworth  ;  "  father  sent  me  to  tell  you  that 
your  bill  was  passed.  He  remained  until  the 
session  closed,  and  yours  was  the  last  bill  but 
one  acted  upon,  and  it  was  passed  just  five 
minutes  before  the  adjournment.  And  I  am  so 
glad  to  be  able  to  be  the  first  one  to  tell  you. 
Mother  says  you  must  come  home  with  me  to 
breakfast." 

Morse,  overcome  by  the  intelligence,  promised 
that  his  young  friend,  the  bearer  of  these  good 
tidings,  should  send  the  first  message  over  the 
first  line  of  telegraph  that  was  opened. 

He  writes  to  Alfred  Vail  that  day :  "  The 
amount  of  business  before  the  Senate  rendered 
it  more  and  more  doubtful,  as  the  session  drew 
to  a  close,  whether  the  House  bill  on  the  tele- 
graph would  be  reached,  and  on  the  last  day, 
March  3,  1843,  I  was  advised  by  one  of  my 
Senatorial  friends  to  make  up  my  mind  for  fail- 
ure, as  he  deemed  it  next  to  impossible  that  it 
could  be  reached  before  the  adjournment.  The 
bill,  however,  was  reached  a  few  minutes  before 
midnight  and  passed.  This  was  the  turning 
point  in  the  history  of  the  telegraph.  My  per- 
sonal funds  were  reduced  to  the  fraction  of  a 
dollar,  and,  had  the  passage  of  the  bill  failed 
from  any  cause,  there  would  have  been  little 
prospect  of  another  attempt  on  my  part  to  intro- 
duce to  the  world  my  new  invention." 

The  appropriation  by  Congress  having  been 
made,  Morse    went  to    work    with    energy    and 


138  INVENTORS 

delight  to  construct  the  first  line  of  his  electric 
telegraph.  It  was  important  that  it  should  be 
laid  where  it  would  attract  the  attention  of  the 
government,  and  this  consideration  decided  the 
question  in  favor  of  a  line  between  Washington 
and  Baltimore.  He  had  as  assistants  Professor 
Gale  and  Professor  J.  C.  Fisher.  Mr.  Vail  was 
to  devote  his  attention  to  making  the  instru- 
ments and  the  purchase  of  materials.  Morse 
himself  was  general  superintendent  under  the 
appointment  of  the  government  and  gave  atten- 
tion to  the  minutest  details.  All  disbursements 
passed  through  his  hands.  In  point  of  accuracy, 
the  preservation  of  vouchers,  and  presentation  of 
accounts.  General  Washington  himself  was  not 
more  precise,  lucid,  and  correct.  Ezra  Cornell, 
afterward  one  of  the  most  successful  constructors 
of  telegraph  lines,  was  employed  to  take  charge 
of  the  work  under  Morse.  Much  time  and 
expense  were  lost  in  consequence  of  following  a 
plan  for  laying  the  wires  in  a  leaden  tube,  and  it 
was  only  when  it  was  decided  to  string  them  on 
posts  that  work  began  to  proceed  rapidly. 

In  expectation  of  the  meeting  of  the  Nation- 
al Whig  Convention,  May  i,  1844,  to  nominate 
candidates  for  President  and  Vice-President, 
energy  was  redoubled,  and  by  that  time  the 
wires  were  in  working  order  twenty-two  miles 
from  Washington  toward  Baltimore.  The  day 
before  the  convention  met.  Professor  Morse 
wrote  to  Vail  that  certain  signals  should  mean 
the  nomination  of  a  particular  candidate.  The 
experiment  was  approaching  its  crisis.     The  con- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 


139 


vention  assembled  and  Henry  Clay  was  nom- 
inated by  acclamation  to  the  Presidency.  The 
news  was  conveyed  on  the  railroad  to  the 
point  reached  by  the  telegraph  and  thence  in- 
stantly transmitted  over  the  wires  to  Washing- 
ton. An  hour  afterward  passengers  arriving 
at  the  capital,  and  supposing  that  they  had 
brought  the  first  intelligence,  were  surprised  to 


Morse  in  his  Study. 
(From  an  old  print.) 

find  that  the  announcement  had  been  made  al- 
ready and  that  they  were  the  bearers  of  old 
news.  The  convention  shortly  afterward  nom- 
inated Frelinghuysen  as  Vice-President,  and 
the  intelligence  was  sent  to  Washington  in  the 
same  manner.  Public  astonishment  was  great 
and  many  persons  doubted  that  the  feat  could 
have  been  performed.  Before  May  had  elapsed 
the  line  reached  Baltimore. 

On  the  24th  of  May,  1844,  Morse  was  prepared 


140  INVENTORS 

to  put  to  final  test  the  great  experiment  on  which 
his  mind  had  been  laboring  for  twelve  anxious 
years.  Vail,  his  assistant,  was  at  the  Baltimore 
terminus.  Morse  had  invited  his  friends  to  as- 
semble in  the  chamber  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  where  he  had  his  instrument, 
from  which  the  wires  extended  to  Baltimore. 
He  had  promised  his  young  friend,  Miss  Ells- 
worth, that  she  should  send  the  first  message 
over  the  wires.  Her  mother  suggested  the 
familiar  words  of  scripture  (Numbers,  xxiii.  23), 
"  What  hath  God  wrought !  "  The  words  were 
chosen  without  consultation  with  the  inventor, 
but  were  singularly  the  expression  of  his  own 
sentiment  and  his  own  experience  in  bringing  his 
work  to  successful  accomplishment.  Perfectly 
religious  in  his  convictions,  and  trained  from 
earliest  childhood  to  believe  in  the  special  super- 
intendence of  Providence  in  the  minutest  affairs 
of  man,  he  had  acted  throughout  the  whole  of 
his  struggles  under  the  firm  persuasion  that  God 
was  working  in  him  to  do  His  own  pleasure  in 
this  thing. 

The  first  public  messages  sent  were  a  notice  to 
Silas  Wright  in  Washington  of  his  nomination 
to  the  office  of  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  by  the  Democratic  convention,  then  in 
session  (May,  1844)  in  Baltimore,  and  his  re- 
sponse declining  it.  Hendrick  B.  Wright,  in  a 
letter  written  to  Mr.  B.  J.  Lossing,  says :  '*  As 
the  presiding  officer  of  the  body  I  read  the  de- 
spatch, but  so  incredulous  were  the  members  as 
to  the  authority  of   the  evidence   before   them 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  141 

that  the  convention  adjourned  over  to  the  fol- 
lowing day  to  await  the  report  of  the  committee 
sent  over  to  Washington  to  get  reliable  informa- 
tion on  the  subject."  Mr.  Vail  kept  a  diary  in 
those  early  days  of  the  telegraph,  full  of  inter- 
esting reminiscences.  It  was  often  necessary,  in 
order  to  convince  incredulous  visitors  to  the 
office  that  the  questions  and  replies  sent  over 
the  wire  were  not  manufactured  or  agreed  upon 
beforehand,  to  allow  them  to  send  their  own  re- 
marks. When  the  committee  just  mentioned  by 
Mr.  Wright  returned  from  Baltimore  and  con- 
firmed the  correctness  of  the  report  given  by 
telegraph,  the  new  invention  received  a  splendid 
advertisement.  The  convention  having  reassem- 
bled in  the  morning,  and  the  refusal  of  Wright 
to  accept  the  nomination  having  been  communi- 
cated, a  conference  was  held  between  him  and 
his  friends  through  the  medium  of  Morse's  wires. 
In  Washington  Mr.  Wright  and  Mr.  Morse  were 
closeted  with  the  instrument ;  at  Baltimore  the 
committee  of  conference  surrounded  Vail  with 
his  instrument.  Spectators  and  auditors  were 
excluded.  The  committee  communicated  to  Mr. 
Wright  their  reasons  for  urging  his  acceptance. 
In  a  moment  he  received  their  communication 
in  writing  and  as  quickly  returned  his  answer. 
Again  and  again  these  confidential  messages 
passed,  and  the  result  was  finally  announced  to 
the  convention  that  Mr.  Wright  was  inflexible. 
Mr.  Dallas  then  received  the  nomination  and  ac- 
cepted it.  The  ticket  thus  nominated  was  suc- 
cessful at  the  election  of  that  year.    The  original 


142  INVENTORS 

slips  of  paper  on  which  some  of  the  early  mes- 
sages were  written  are  still  preserved,  among 
others  this  request:  "As  a  rumor  is  prevalent 
here  this  morning  that  Mr.  Eugene  Boyle  was 
shot  at  Baltimore  last  evening,  Professor  Morse 
will  confer  a  great  favor  upon  the  family  by 
making  inquiry  by  means  of  his  electro-magnetic 
telegraph  if  such  is  the  fact." 

The  telegraph  was  shown  at  first  without 
charge.  During  the  session  of  1 844-1 845  Con- 
gress made  an  appropriation  of  $8,000  to  keep  it 
in  operation  during  the  year,  placing  it  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Postmaster-General,  who, 
at  the  close  of  the  session,  ordered  a  tariff  of 
charges  of  one  cent  for  every  four  characters 
made  through  the  telegraph.  Mr.  Vail  was  ap- 
pointed operator  for  the  Washington  station  and 
Mr.  H.  J.  Rogers  for  Baltimore.  This  new  order 
of  things  began  April  i,  1845,  the  object  being 
to  test  the  profitableness  of  the  enterprise.  The 
first  day's  income  was  one  cent;  on  the  fifth 
day  twelve  and  a  half  cents  were  received ;  on 
the  seventh  the  receipts  ran  up  to  sixty  cents ; 
on  the  eighth  to  one  dollar  and  thirty -two 
cents ;  on  the  ninth  to  one  dollar  and  four 
cents.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  as  Mr.  Vail 
notes,  that  the  business  done  after  the  tariff 
was  fixed  was  greater  than  when  the  service 
was  gratuitous. 

The  telegraph  was  now  a  reality.  Its  com- 
pletion was  hailed  with  enthusiasm,  and  the 
newspapers  lauded  the  inventor  to  the  skies. 
Resolutions  of  thanks  and  applause  were  adopted 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  143 

by  popular  assemblies.  It  was  a  favorite  idea 
with  Professor  Morse,  from  the  inception  of  his 
enterprise,  that  the  telegraph  should  belong  to 
the  government,  and  he  sent  a  communication 
to  Congress  making  a  formal  offer.  The  overture 
was  not  accepted,  but  the  extension  of  the  line 
from  Baltimore  to  Philadelphia  and  then  to  New 
York  was  only  a  work  of  time.  The  aid  of  Con- 
gress was  sought  in  vain.  The  appropriation  of 
$8,000  was  made,  but  further  than  that  the  gov- 
ernment declined  to  go.  The  sum  named  as  the 
price  at  which  the  Morse  Company  would  sell 
the  telegraph  to  the  government  was  $100,000. 
The  subject  was  discussed  in  the  report  of  Cave 
Johnson,  Postmaster -General  under  President 
Polk.  He  was  a  member  of  Congress  when  the 
bill  came  up  before  the  House  appropriating 
$30,000  for  the  experimental  line,  and  was  one  of 
those  who  ridiculed  the  whole  subject  as  unwor- 
thy of  the  notice  of  sensible  men.  As  Postmas- 
ter-General he  said  in  his  report,  after  the  ex- 
periment had  succeeded  to  the  satisfaction  of 
mankind,  that  "  the  operation  of  a  telegraph  be- 
tween Washington  and  Baltimore  had  not  satis- 
fied him  that  under  any  rate  of  postage  that  could 
be  adopted  its  revenues  could  be  made  equal  to 
its  expenditures."  Such  an  opinion,  with  the  ev- 
idence then  in  the  possession  of  the  department, 
appears  to  be  curious  official  blindness.  But  it 
was  fortunate  for  the  inventor  that  the  telegraph 
was  left  to  the  private  enterprise.  Twenty-five 
years  after  the  government  had  declined  to  take 
the  telegraph  at  the  price  of  $100,000,  a  project 


144  INVENTORS 

was  started  to  establish  lines  of  telegraph  to  be 
used  by  the  government  as  part  of  the  mail  postal 
system.  And  in  1873  the  Postmaster-General, 
Mr.  Cresswell,  said  in  his  report  that  the  entire 
first  cost  of  all  the  lines  in  the  country,  including 
patents,  was  less  than  $10,000,000;  but  the  prop- 
erty of  the  existing  telegraph  company  was  al- 
ready well  worth  $50,000,000. 

Morse's  position  was  far  easier  than  it  had 
been  for  many  years.  His  old  friends,  the  artists 
of  New  York,  rallied  in  force  and  laid  before 
Congress  a  petition  that  the  professor  be  em- 
ployed to  execute  the  painting  to  fill  the  panel 
at  the  Capitol  assigned  to  Inman,  who  had  been 
removed  by  death.  But  it  came  to  nothing. 
Morse  was  never  again  to  take  the  brush  in  hand. 
The  first  money  that  he  received  from  his  inven- 
tion was  the  sum  of  $47,  being  his  share  of  the 
amount  paid  for  the  right  to  use  his  patent  on  a 
short  line  from  the  Washington  Post-office  to 
the  National  Observatory.  The  use  he  made  of 
the  money  was  characteristic  of  the  man.  He 
sent  it  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Sprole,  then  a  pastor  in 
Washington,  requesting  him  to  apply  it  for  the 
benefit  of  his  church. 

Early  in  June,  1846,  the  line  from  Baltimore 
to  Philadelphia  was  in  operation,  and  that  from 
Philadelphia  to  New  York.  Abroad  the  system 
was  working  its  way  steadily  into  favor.  In 
France  an  appropriation  of  nearly  half  a  million 
francs  was  made  to  introduce  the  Morse  system. 
But  meantime  violations  of  Morse's  rights  were 
beginning  to  crop  up  on  every  side,  both  at  home 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  145 

and  abroad.  In  a  letter  to  Daniel  Lord,  his  law- 
yer, Morse  says  : 

''  The  plot  thickens  all  around  me ;  1  think  a 
denouement  not  far  off.  I  remember  your  con- 
soling me  under  these  attacks  with  bidding  me 
think  that  I  had  invented  something  worth  con- 
tending for.  Alas !  my  dear  sir,  what  encour- 
agement is  there  to  an  inventor  if,  after  years  of 
toil  and  anxiety,  he  has  only  purchased  for  him- 
self the  pleasure  of  being  a  target  for  every  vile 
fellow  to  shoot  at,  and  in  proportion  as  his  inven- 
tion is  of  public  utility,  so  much  the  greater 
effort  is  to  be  made  to  defame  that  the  robbery 
may  excite  the  less  sympathy  ?  I  know,  how- 
ever, that  beyond  all  this  there  is  a  clear  sky ; 
but  the  clouds  may  not  break  away  till  I  am  no 
longer  personally  interested,  whether  it  be  foul 
or  fair.  I  wish  not  to  complain,  but  I  have  feel- 
ings, and  cannot  play  the  Stoic  if  I  would." 

Perhaps  the  most  painful  chapter  of  Morse's 
life  is  the  history  of  the  lawsuits  in  which  he 
was  involved  in  defence  of  his  rights.  His  rep- 
utation as  well  as  his  property  were  assailed. 
Exceedingly  sensitive  to  these  attacks,  the  suits 
that  followed  the  success  of  the  telegraph  cost 
him  inexpressible  distress.  It  is  some  satisfac- 
tion to  be  able  to  record  that  after  years  of  bit- 
ter controversy  the  final  decision  was  favorable 
to  the  inventor.  Honors  began  to  pour  in  upon 
him  from  even  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 
The  Sultan  of  Turkey  was  the  first  monarch  to 
acknowledge  Morse  as  a  public  benefactor.  This 
was  in  1848.  The  kings  of  Prussia  and  Wurtem- 
10 


146 


LWVENT0B8 


burg  and  the  Emperor  of  Austria  each  gave  him 
a  gold  medal,  that  of  the  first  named  being  set  in 
a  massive  gold  snuff-box.  In  1856  the  Emperor 
of  the  French  made  him  a  chevalier  of  the  Le- 
gion of  Honor.  Orders  from  Denmark,  Spain, 
Italy,  Portugal  soon  followed.     In  1858  a  special 


The  Siphon  Recorder  for  Receiving  Cable   Messages — Office  of  the  Connmercial 
Cable  Company,  i   Broad  Street,  New  York. 

congress  was  called  by  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  to  devise  a  suitable  testimonial  of  the 
nation  to  Professor  Morse.  Representatives 
from  ten  sovereignties  convened  at  Paris  and  by 
a  unanimous  vote  gave,  in  the  aggregate,  $80,000 
as  an  honorary  gratuity  to  Professor  Morse. 
The  states  participating  in  this  testimonial  were 
France,  Austria,  Russia,  Belgium,  Holland,  Swe- 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  147 

den,  Piedmont,  the  Holy  See,  Tuscany,  and  Tur- 
key. 

Professor  Morse  was  one  of  the  first  to  sug- 
gest and  the  first  to  carry  out  the  use  of  a  ma- 
rine cable.  During  the  summer  of  1842  he  had 
been  making  elaborate  preparations  for  an  ex- 
periment destined  to  give  wonderful  develop- 
ment to  his  invention.  This  was  no  less  than 
a  submarine  wire,  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that 
the  current  of  electricity  could  be  conducted 
as  well  under  water  as  through  the  air.  Of 
this  he  had  entertained  no  doubt.  "  If  I  can 
make  it  work  ten  miles,  I  can  make  it  go  around 
the  globe,"  was  a  favorite  expression  of  his  in  the 
infancy  of  his  enterprise.  But  he  wished  to  prove 
it.  He  insulated  his  wire  as  well  as  he  could 
with  hempen  strands  well  covered  with  pitch, 
tar,  and  india-rubber.  In  the  course  of  the 
autumn  he  was  prepared  to  put  the  question 
to  the  test  of  actual  experiment.  The  wire  was 
only  the  twelfth  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  About 
two  miles  of  this,  wound  on  a  reel,  was  placed  in 
a  small  row-boat,  and  with  one  man  at  the  oars 
and  Professor  Morse  at  the  stern,  the  work  of 
paying  out  the  cable  was  begun.  It  was  a  beau- 
tiful moonlight  night,  and  those  who  had  pro- 
longed their  evening  rambles  on  the  Battery  must 
have  wondered,  as  they  watched  the  proceedings 
in  the  boat,  what  kind  of  fishing  the  two  men 
could  be  engaged  in  that  required  so  long  a  line. 
In  somewhat  less  than  two  hours,  on  that  eventful 
evening  of  October  18,  1842,  the  first  cable  was 
laid.      Professor  Morse  returned  to  his  lodgings 


148  INVENTORS 

and  waited  with  some  anxiety  the  time  when  he 
should  be  able  to  test  the  experiment  fully  and 
fairly.  The  next  morning  the  New  York  Her- 
ald contained  the  following  editorial  announce- 
ment : 

"Morse's  Electro-Magnetic  Telegraph. 

"  This  important  invention  is  to  be  exhibited  in 
operation  at  Castle  Garden  between  the  hours  of 
twelve  and  one  o'clock  to-day.  One  telegraph 
will  be  erected  on  Governor's  Island  and  one  at 
the  Castle,  and  messages  will  be  interchanged 
and  orders  transmitted  during  the  day.  Many 
have  been  incredulous  as  to  the  powers  of  this 
wonderful  triumph  of  science  and  art.  All  such 
may  now  have  an  opportunity  of  fairly  testing  it. 
It  is  destined  to  work  a  complete  revolution 
in  the  mode  of  transmitting  intelligence  through- 
out the  civilized  world." 

At  daybreak  the  professor  was  on  the  Battery, 
and  had  just  demonstrated  his  success  by  the 
transmission  of  three  or  four  characters  between 
the  termini  of  the  line,  when  the  communication 
was  suddenly  interrupted,  and  it  was  found  im- 
possible to  send  any  messages  through  the  con- 
ductor. The  cause  of  this  was  evident  when  he 
observed  no  less  than  seven  vessels  lying  along 
the  line  of  the  submerged  cable,  one  of  which,  in 
getting  under  way,  had  raised  it  on  her  anchor. 
The  sailors,  unable  to  divine  its  meaning,  hauled 
in  about  two  hundred  feet  of  it  on  deck,  and  find- 
'ing  no  end,  cut  off  that  portion  and  carried  it 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  149 

away  with  them.  Thus  ended  the  first  attempt 
at  submarine  telegraphing.  The  crowd  that  had 
assembled  on  the  Battery  dispersed  with  jeers, 
most  of  them  believing  they  had  been  made  the 
victims  of  a  hoax. 

In  a  letter  to  John  C.  Spencer,  then  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  in  August,  1843,  concerning  elec- 
tro-magnetism and  its  powers,  he  wrote  : 

"  The  practical  inference  from  this  law  is  that 
a  telegraphic  communication  on  the  electro-mag- 
netic plan  may  with  certainty  be  established 
across  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Startling  as  this 
may  now  seem,  I  am  confident  the  time  will 
come  when  this  project  will  be  realized." 

In  1 87 1  a  statue  of  Professor  Morse  w^as  erected 
in  Central  Park,  New  York,  at  the  expense  of  the 
telegraph  operators  of  the  country.  It  was  un- 
veiled on  June  loth  with  imposing  ceremonies. 
There  were  delegates  from  every  State  in  the 
Union,  and  from  the  British  provinces.  In  the 
evening  a  public  reception  was  given  to  the  ven- 
erable inventor  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  at 
which  William  Orton,  president  of  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company,  presided,  assisted 
by  scores  of  the  leading  public  men  of  the  coun- 
try as  vice-presidents.  The  last  scene  was  an  im- 
pressive one.  It  was  announced  that  the  tele- 
graphic instrument  before  the  audience  was  then 
in  connection  with  every  other  one  of  the  ten 
thousand  instruments  in  America.  Then  Miss 
Cornell,  a  young  telegraphic  operator,  sent  this 
message  from  the  key  :  "  Greeting  and  thanks  to 
the  telegraph  fraternity  throughout  the   world. 


150  INVENTORS 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  on  earth  peace, 
good-will  to  men."  The  venerable  inventor,  the 
personification  of  simplicity,  dignity,  and  kindli- 
ness, was  then  conducted  to  the  instrument,  and 
touching  the  key,  sent  out :  ''  S.  F.  B.  MORSE." 
A  storm  of  enthusiasm  swept  through  the  house 
as  the  audience  rose,  the  ladies  waving  their 
handkerchiefs  and  the  men  cheering. 

Professor  Morse  last  appeared  in  public  on 
February  22,  1872,  when  he  unveiled  the  statue 
of  Franklin,  erected  in  Printing-house  Square  in 
New  York.  He  died,  after  a  short  illness,  on 
April  2,  1872,  and  was  buried  in  Greenwood 
Cemetery.  On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  April  5th, 
every  telegraph  office  in  the  country  was  draped 
in  mourning. 

Professor  Morse  was  twice  married.  His  first 
wife  died  in  1825.  In  1848  he  married  Sarah 
Elizabeth  Griswold,  of  Poughkeepsie,  who  still 
lives.  By  the  first  marriage  there  were  three 
children,  one  of  whom,  a  son,  survives.  By  the 
second  marriage  there  were  four  children,  three 
of  whom  are  alive — a  daughter  and  two  sons. 
Miss  Leila  Morse,  the  daughter,  was  married  in 
1885  to  Herr  Franz  Rummel,  the  eminent  pianist. 
The  last  years  of  his  life  were  eminently  peaceful 
and  happy.  In  the  summer  he  lived  at  a  place 
called  Locust  Grove,  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson, 
near  Poughkeepsie,  and  in  the  winter  in  a  house 
at  No.  5  West  Twenty-second  Street,  a  few  doors 
west  of  Fifth  Avenue.  In  recent  years  a  marble 
tablet  has  been  affixed  to  the  front  of  the  house, 
suitably  inscribed. 


No,   5   West  Twenty-second   Street,  New  York, 
and  Died, 


/here   Morse   Lived  for  Many  Years 


152  INVENTOBS 

Morse's  life  in  the  country  was  very  simple  and 
quiet.  His  hour  of  rising  was  half-past  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  he  was  in  his  library 
alone  until  breakfast,  at  eight.  He  loved  to  hear 
the  birds  in  their  native  songs,  and  he  could  dis- 
tinguish the  notes  of  each  species,  and  would 
speak  of  the  quality  of  their  respective  music. 
He  spent  most  of  the  day  in  reading  and  writ- 
ing, rarely  taking  exercise,  except  walking  in 
his  garden  to  visit  his  graperies,  in  which  he 
took  special  pride,  or  to  the  stable  to  see  if  his 
horses  were  well  cared  for.  He  did  not  ride  out 
regularly  with  his  family,  preferring  the  repose 
of  his  own  grounds  and  the  labors  of  his  study. 
But  when  he  walked  or  rode  in  the  country,  he 
was  constantly  disposed  to  speak  of  the  beauty 
and  glory  around  him,  as  revealing  to  his  mind 
the  beneficence,  wisdom,  and  power  of  the  infinite 
Creator,  who  had  made  all  these  things  for  the 
use  and  enjoyment  of  men. 

One  of  his  daughters  writes  of  him  in  these 
simple  and  tender  words  :  "  He  loved  flowers. 
He  would  take  one  in  his  hand  and  talk  for  hours 
about  its  beauty,  its  wonderful  construction,  and 
the  wisdom  and  love  of  God  in  making  so  many 
varied  forms  of  life  and  color  to  please  our  eyes. 
In  his  later  years  he  became  deeply  interested  in 
the  microscope  and  purchased  one  of  great  ex- 
cellence and  power.  For  whole  hours,  all  the 
afternoon  or  evening,  he  would  sit  over  it,  exam- 
ining flowers  or  the  animalculse  in  different  fluids. 
Then  he  would  gather  his  children  about  him  and 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE  153 

give  us  a  sort  of  extempore  lecture  on  the  won- 
ders of  creation  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  but 
so  clearly  brought  to  view  by  the  magnifying 
power  of  the  microscope.  He  was  very  fond  of 
animals,  cats,  and  birds  in  particular.  He  tamed 
a  little  flying-squirrel,  and  it  became  so  fond  of 
him  that  it  would  sit  on  his  shoulder  while  he 
was  at  his  studies  and  would  eat  out  of  his  hand 
and  sleep  in  his  pocket.  To  this  little  animal  he 
became  so  much  attached  that  we  took  it  with 
us  to  Europe,  where  it  came  to  an  untimely  end, 
in  Paris,  by  running  into  an  open  fire." 
His  biographer.  Prime,  says  of  him  : 
"  In  person  Professor  Morse  was  tall,  slender, 
graceful,  and  attractive.  Six  feet  in  stature,  he 
stood  erect  and  firm,  even  in  old  age.  His  blue 
eyes  were  expressive  of  genius  and  affection. 
His  nature  was  a  rare  combination  of  solid  intel- 
lect and  delicate  sensibility.  Thoughtful,  sober, 
and  quiet,  he  readily  entered  into  the  enjoyments 
of  domestic  and  social  life,  indulging  in  sallies  of 
humor,  and  readily  appreciating  and  greatly  en- 
joying the  wit  of  others.  Dignified  in  his  inter- 
course with  men,  courteous  and  affable  with  the 
gentler  sex,  he  was  a  good  husband,  a  judicious 
father,  a  generous  and  faithful  friend.  He  had 
the  misfortune  to  incur  the  hostility  of  men  who 
would  deprive  him  of  the  merit  and  the  reward 
of  his  labors.  But  his  was  the  common  fate  of 
great  inventors.  He  lived  until  his  rights  were 
vindicated  by  every  tribunal  to  which  they  could 
be  referred,  and  acknowledged  by  all  civilized 


154  INVENTORS      - 

nations.  And  he  died  leaving  to  his  children  a 
spotless  and  illustrious  name,  and  to  his  country  , 
the  honor  of  having  given  birth  to  the  only 
electro-magnetic  recording  telegraph  whose  line 
has  gone  out  through  all  the  earth  and  its  words 
to  the  end  of  the  world.*' 


Charles   Goodyear. 


VI. 

CHARLES    GOODYEAR. 

India-rubber  had  been  known  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years  when  Charles  Goodyear  under- 
took to  make  of  it  thousands  of  articles  useful  in 
common  life.  So  long  ago  as  1735  a  party  of 
French  astronomers  discovered  in  Peru  a  curi- 
ous tree  that  yielded  the  natives  a  peculiar  gum 
or  sap  which  they  collected  in  clay  vessels. 
This  sap  became  hard  when  exposed  to  the  sun, 
and  was  used  by  the  natives,  who  made  different 
articles  of  every-day  use  from  it  by  dipping  a 
clay  mould  again  and  again  into  the  liquid. 
When  the  article  was  completed  the  clay  mould 
was  broken  to  pieces  and  shaken  out.  In  this 
manner  they  made  a  kind  of  rough  shoe  and  an 
equally  rough  bottle.  In  some  parts  of  South 
America  the  natives  presented  their  guests  with 
these  bottles,  which  served  as  syringes  for 
squirting  water.  Articles  thus  made  were  liable 
to  become  stiff  and  unmanageable  in  cold  weather 
and  soft  and  sticky  in  warm.  Upon  getting  back 
to  France  the  travellers  directed  the  attention 
of  scientists  to  this  remarkable  gum,  which  was 
afterward  found  in  various  parts  of  South  Amer- 
ica, and  the  chief  supplies  of  which  still  come 
from  Brazil.     About  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 


158  INVENTORS 

moment.  India-rubber  stock  fell  rapidly,  and  by 
the  end  of  1836  there  was  not  a  solvent  rubber 
company  in  the  Union,  the  stockholders  losing 
about  $2,000,000.  People  came  to  detest  the  very 
name  of  india-rubber. 

One  day,  in  1834,  a  Philadelphia  hardware 
merchant,  named  Charles  Goodyear,  was  led  by 
curiosity  to  buy  a  rubber  life-preserver.  And 
thus  began  for  this  unfortunate  genius  nearly 
twenty-five  years  of  struggle,  misery,  and  dis- 
appointment. Charles  Goodyear  was  born  in 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  December  29,  1800.  When 
a  boy  his  father  moved  to  Philadelphia,  where 
he  engaged  in  the  hardware  business,  and 
upon  becoming  of  age,  Charles  Goodyear  joined 
him  as  a  partner.  In  the  panic  of  1 836-1 837  the 
house  went  down.  Goodyear's  attention  had 
been  attracted  for  several  years  by  the  wonder- 
ful success  of  the  india-rubber  companies.  Upon 
examining  his  life-preserver  he  discovered  a  de- 
fect in  the  inflating  valve  and  made  an  improved 
one.  Going  to  New  York  with  this  device,  he 
called  on  the  agent  of  the  Roxbury  Company 
and,  explaining  it  to  him,  offered  to  sell  it  to 
the  company.  The  agent  was  impressed  with 
the  improvement,  but  instead  of  buying  it,  told 
the  inventor  the  real  state  of  the  india-rubber 
business  of  the  country,  then  on  the  verge  of  a 
collapse.  He  urged  Goodyear  to  exert  his  in- 
ventive skill  in  discovering  some  means  of  im- 
parting durability  to  india-rubber  goods,  and 
assured  him  that  if  he  could  find  a  process  to 
effect  that  end,  he  could  sell  it  at  his  own  price. 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  159 

He  explained  the  processes  then  in  use  and  their 
imperfections. 

Goodyear  forgot  all  about  his  disappointment 
in  failing  to  sell  his  valve,  and  went  home  intent 
upon  experiments  to  make  gum-elastic  durable. 
From  that  time  until  the  close  of  his  life  he  de- 
voted himself  solely  to  this  work.  He  was  thir- 
ty-five years  old,  feeble  in  health,  a  bankrupt 
in  business,  and  had  a  young  family  depending 
upon  him.  The  industry  in  which  he  now  en- 
gaged was  one  in  which  thousands  of  persons 
had  found  ruin.  The  firm  of  which  he  had  been 
a  member  owed  $30,000,  and  upon  his  return  to 
Philadelphia  he  was  arrested  for  debt  and  com- 
pelled to  live  within  prison  limits.  He  began  his 
experiments  at  once.  The  price  of  the  gum  had 
fallen  to  five  cents  per  pound,  so  that  he  had  no 
difficulty  in  getting  sufficient  of  it  to  begin  work. 
By  melting  and  working  it  thoroughly  and  roll- 
ing it  out  upon  a  stone  table,  he  succeeded  in  pro- 
ducing sheets  of  india-rubber  that  seemed  to  him 
to  possess  new  properties.  A  friend  loaned  him 
enough  money  to  manufacture  a  number  of  shoes 
which  at  first  seemed  to  be  all  that  could  be 
desired.  Fearful,  however,  of  coming  trouble, 
Goodyear  put  his  shoes  away  until  the  following 
summer,  when  the  warm  weather  reduced  them 
to  a  mass  of  so  offensive  an  odor  that  he  was 
glad  to  throw  them  away.  His  friend  was  so 
thoroughly  disheartened  by  this  failure  as  to 
refuse  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with 
Goodyear's  scheme.  The  inventor,  nevertheless, 
kept  on. 


160  INVENTORS 

It  occurred  to  him  that  there  must  be  some 
substance  which,  mixed  with  the  gum,  would  ren- 
der it  durable,  and  he  began  to  experiment  with 
almost  every  substance  that  he  could  lay  his 
hands  on.  All  proved  total  failures  with  the 
exception  of  magnesia.  By  mixing  half  a  pound 
of  magnesia  with  a  pound  of  the  gum  he  pro- 
duced a  substance  whiter  than  the  pure  gum, 
which  was  at  first  as  firm  and  flexible  as  leather, 
and  out  of  which  he  made  beautiful  book-covers 
and  piano-covers.  It  looked  as  if  he  had  solved 
the  problem  ;  but  in  a  month  his  pretty  product 
was  ruined.  Heat  caused  it  to  soften ;  fermen- 
tation then  set  in,  and  finally  it  became  as  hard 
and  brittle  as  thin  glass.  His  stock  of  money 
was  now  exhausted.  He  was  forced  to  pawn  all 
his  own  valuables  and  even  the  trinkets  of  his 
wife.  But  he  felt  sure  that  he  was  on  the  road 
to  success  and  would  eventually  win  both  fame 
and  fortune.  He  removed  his  family  to  the  coun- 
try, and  set  out  for  New  York,  where  he  hoped 
to  find  someone  willing  to  aid  him  in  carrying 
his  experiments  further.  Here  he  met  two 
acquaintances,  one  of  whom  offered  him  the  use 
of  a  room  in  Gold  Street  as  a  workshop,  and  the 
other,  a  druggist,  agreed  to  let  him  have  on 
credit  such  chemicals  as  he  needed.  He  now 
boiled  the  gum,  mixed  with  magnesia,  in  quick- 
lime and  water,  and  as  a  result  obtained  firm, 
smooth  sheets  that  won  him  a  medal  at  the  fair 
of  the  American  Institute  in  1835.  He  seemed 
on  the  point  of  success,  and  easily  sold  all  the 
sheets  he  could  manufacture,  when,  to  his  dismay, 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  161 

he  discovered  that  a  drop  of  the  weakest  acid, 
such  as  the  juice  of  an  apple  or  diluted  vinegar, 
would  reduce  his  new  compound  to  the  old 
sticky  substance  that  had  baffled  him  so  often. 

His  first  important  discovery  on  the  road  to 
real  success  was  the  result  of  accident.  He 
liked  pretty  things,  and  it  was  a  constant  effort 
with  him  to  make  his  productions  as  attractive 
to  the  eye  as  possible.  Upon  one  occasion,  while 
bronzing  a  piece  of  rubber  cloth,  he  applied 
aqua  fortis  to  it  for  the  purpose  of  removing  part 
of  the  bronze.  It  took  away  the  bronze,  but  it 
also  destroyed  the  cloth  to  such  a  degree  that  he 
supposed  it  ruined  and  threw  it  away.  A  day  or 
two  later,  happening  to  pick  it  up,  he  was  aston- 
ished to  find  that  the  rubber  had  undergone  a  re- 
markable change,  and  that  the  effect  of  the  acid 
had  been  to  harden  it  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
would  now  stand  a  degree  of  heat  which  would 
have  melted  it  before.  Aqua  fortis  contained 
sulphuric  acid.  Goodyear  was  thus  on  the 
threshold  of  his  great  discovery  of  vulcanizing 
rubber.  He  called  his  new  process  the  "  curing  " 
of  india-rubber. 

The  ''cured"  india-rubber  was  subjected  to 
many  tests  and  passed  through  them  successfully, 
thus  demonstrating  its  adaptability  to  many  im- 
portant uses.  Goodyear  readily  obtained  a  pat- 
ent for  his  process,  and  a  partner  with  a  large 
capital  was  found  ready  to  aid  him.  He  hired 
the  old  india-rubber  works  on  Staten  Island  and 
opened  a  salesroom  in  Broadway.  He  was 
thrown    back   for   six    weeks   at  this  important 


162  INVENTORS 

time  by  an  accident  which  happened  to  him 
while  experimenting  with  his  fabrics  and  which 
came  near  causing  his  death.  Just  as  he  was  re- 
covering and  preparing  to  begin  the  manufacture 
of  his  goods  on  a  large  scale  the  terrible  com- 
mercial crisis  of  1837  swept  over  the  country, 
and  by  destroying  his  partner's  fortune  at  one 
blow,  reduced  Goodyear  to  absolute  beggary. 
His  family  had  joined  him  in  New  York,  and  he 
was  entirely  without  the  means  of  supporting 
them.  As  the  only  resource  at  hand  he  decided 
to  pawn  an  article  of  value — one  of  the  few 
which  he  possessed — in  order  to  raise  money  to 
procure  one  day's  supply  of  provisions.  At  the 
very  door  of  the  paAvnbroker's  shop  he  met  one 
of  his  creditors,  who  kindly  asked  if  he  could 
be  of  any  further  assistance  to  him.  Weak 
with  hunger  and  overcome  by  the  generosity 
of  his  friend  the  poor  man  burst  into  tears  and 
replied  that,  as  his  family  was  on  the  point  of 
starvation,  a  loan  of  $15  would  greatly  oblige 
him.  The  money  was  given  him  on  the  spot  and 
the  necessity  for  visiting  the  pawnbroker  averted 
for  several  days  longer.  Still  he  was  a  frequent 
visitor  to  that  person  during  the  year,  and  one 
by  one  the  relics  of  his  better  days  disappeared. 
Another  friend  loaned  him  $100,  which  enabled 
him  to  remove  his  family  to  Staten  Island,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  abandoned  rubber  works, 
which  the  owners  gave  him  permission  to  use 
so  far  as  he  could.  He  contrived  in  this  way  to 
manufacture  enough  of  his  "  cured  "  cloth,  which 
sold    readily,   to  enable  him  to   keep  his  family 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  163 

from  starvation.  He  made  repeated  efforts  to 
induce  capitalists  to  come  to  the  factory  and  see 
his  samples  and  the  process  by  which  they  were 
made,  but  no  one  would  venture  near  him. 
There  had  been  money  enough  lost  in  such  ex- 
periments, these  acquaintances  said,  and  they 
were  determined  to  risk  no  more. 

Indeed,  in  all  the  broad  land  there  was  but  one 
man  who  had  the  slightest  hope  of  accomplish- 
ing anything  with  india-rubber,  and  that  one 
was  Charles  Goodyear.  His  friends  regarded 
him  as  a  monomaniac.  He  not  only  manufactured 
his  cloth,  but  even  dressed  in  clothes  made  of  it, 
wearing  it  for  the  purpose  of  testing  its  dura- 
bility, as  well  as  of  advertising  it.  He  was  cer- 
tainly an  odd  figure,  and  in  his  appearance  justi- 
fied the  remark  of  one  of  his  friends,  who,  upon 
being  asked  how  Mr.  Goodyear  could  be  recog- 
nized, replied :  "  If  you  see  a  man  with  an  india- 
rubber  coat  on,  india-rubber  shoes,  and  india- 
rubber  cap,  and  in  his  pocket  an  india-rubber 
purse  with  not  a  cent  in  it,  that  is  Goodyear." 

In  September,  1837,  a  new  gleam  of  hope  lit 
up  his  pathway.  A  friend  having  loaned  him  a 
small  sum  of  money  he  went  to  Roxbury,  taking 
with  him  some  of  his  best  specimens.  Although 
the  Roxbury  Company  had  gone  down  with  a 
fearful  crash,  Mr.  Chaffee,  the  inventor  of  the 
first  process  of  making  rubber  goods  in  this 
country,  was  still  firm  in  his  faith  that  india-rub- 
ber would  at  some  future  time  justify  the  ex- 
pectations of  its  earliest  friends.  He  welcomed 
Goodyear  cordially  and  allo\Ved  him  to  use  the 


164 


INVENTORS 


abandoned  works  of  the  company  for  his  experi- 
ments. The  result  was  that  Goodyear  succeeded 
in  making  shoes  and  cloths  of  india-rubber  of  a 
quality  so  much  better  than  any  that  had  yet 
been  seen  in  America  that  the  hopes  of  the 
friends  of  india-rubber  were  raised  to  a  high 
point.  Offers  to  purchase  rights  for  certain  por- 
tions of  the  country  came  in  rapidly,  and  by  the 


Calenders  Heated   Internally  by  Steann,  for  Spreading  India   Rubber  into   Sheets  or 
upon  Cloth,  called  the  "Chaffee  Machine." 


sale  of  them  Goodyear  realized  between  four 
and  five  thousand  dollars.  He  was  now  able  to 
bring  his  family  to  Roxbury,  and  for  the  time 
fortune  seemed  to  smile  upon  him. 

His  success  was  but  temporary,  however.  He 
obtained  an  order  from  the  general  Government 
for  one  hundred  and  fifty  india-rubber  mail-bags, 
which  he  succeeded  in  producing,  and  as  they 
came  out  smooth,  highly  polished,  hard,  well 
shaped,  and  entirely  impervious  to  moisture,  he 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  165 

was  delighted  and  summoned  his  friends  to  in- 
spect and  admire  them.  All  who  saw  them  pro- 
nounced them  a  perfect  success,  but  alas!  in  a 
single  month  they  began  to  soften  and  ferment, 
and  finally  became  useless.  Poor  Goodyear's 
hopes  were  dashed  to  the  ground.  It  was  found 
that  the  aqua  fortis  merely  "cured"  the  surface 
of  the  material,  and  that  only  very  thin  cloth 
made  in  this  way  was  durable.  His  other  goods 
began  to  prove  worthless  and  his  promising 
business  came  to  a  sudden  and  disastrous  end. 
All  his  possessions  were  seized  and  sold  for  debt, 
and  once  more  he  was  reduced  to  poverty.  His 
position  was  even  worse  than  before,  for  his 
family  had  increased  in  size  and  his  aged  father 
also  had  become  dependent  upon  him  for  sup- 
port. 

Friends,  relatives,  and  even  his  wife,  all  de- 
manded that  he  should  abandon  his  empty 
dreams  and  turn  his  attention  to  something  that 
would  yield  a  support  to  his  family.  Four  years 
of  constant  failure,  added  to  the  unfortunate  ex- 
perience of  those  who  had  preceded  him,  ought 
to  convince  him,  they  said,  that  he  was  hoping 
against  hope.  Hitherto  his  conduct,  entirel}^ 
had  been  absurd,  though  they  admitted  that  he 
was  to  some  extent  excused  for  it  by  his  partial 
success ;  but  to  persist  in  it  would  be  criminal. 
The  inventor  was  driven  to  despair,  and  being  a 
man  of  tender  feelings  and  ardently  devoted  to 
his  family,  might  have  yielded  to  them  had  he 
not  felt  that  he  was  nearer  than  ever  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  secret  that  had  eluded  him  so  long. 


166  INVENTORS 

Just  before  the  failure  of  his  mail-bags  had 
brought  ruin  upon  him,  he  had  taken  into  his 
employ  a  man  named  Nathaniel  Hay  ward,  who 
had  been  the  foreman  of  the  old  Roxbury  works, 
and  who  was  still  in  charge  of  them  when  Good- 
year came  to  Roxbury,  and  was  making  a  few 
rubber  articles  on  his  own  account.  He  hard- 
ened his  compound  by  mixing  a  little  powdered 
sulphur  with  the  gum,  or  by  sprinkling  sulphur 
over  the  rubber  cloth  and  drying  it  in  the  sun. 
He  declared  that  the  process  had  been  revealed 
to  him  in  a  dream,  but  could  give  no  further  ac- 
count of  it.  Goodyear  was  astonished  to  find 
that  the  sulphur  cured  the  india-rubber  as  thor- 
oughly as  the  aqua  fortis,  the  principal  objection 
being  that  the  sulphurous  odor  of  the  goods  was 
frightful  in  hot  weather.  Hayward's  process 
was  really  the  same  as  that  employed  by  Good- 
year, the  "curing"  of  the  india-rubber  being 
due  in  each  case  to  the  agency  of  the  sulphur, 
the  principal  difference  between  them  being  that 
Hayward's  goods  were  dried  by  the  sun  and 
Goodyear's  with  nitric  acid.  Hayward  set  so 
small  a  value  upon  his  discovery  that  he  readily 
sold  it  to  his  new  employer. 

Goodyear  felt  that  he  had  now  all  but  con- 
quered his  difficulties.  It  was  plain  that  sulphur 
was  the  great  controller  of  india-rubber,  for  he 
had  proved  that  when  applied  to  thin  cloth  it 
would  render  it  available  for  most  purposes.  The 
problem  that  now  remained  was  how  to  mix  sul- 
phur and  the  gum  in  a  mass,  so  that  every  part 
of  the  rubber  should  be  subjected  to  the  agency 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  167 

of  the  sulphur.  He  experimented  for  weeks  and 
months  with  the  most  intense  eagerness,  but  the 
mystery  completely  baffled  him.  His  friends 
urged  him  to  go  to  work  to  do  something  for 
his  family,  but  he  could  not  turn  back.  The 
goal  was  almost  in  sight,  and  he  felt  that  he 
would  be  false  to  his  mission  were  he  to  abandon 
his  labors  now.  To  the  world  he  seemed  a  crack- 
brained  dreamer,  and  some  there  were  who,  see- 
ing the  distress  of  his  family,  did  not  hesitate  to 
apply  still  harsher  names  to  him.  Had  it  been 
merely  wealth  that  he  was  working  for,  doubt- 
less he  would  have  turned  back  and  sought  some 
other  means  of  obtaining  it ;  but  he  sought  more. 
He  felt  that  he  had  a  mission  to  fulfil,  and  that 
no  one  else  could  perform  it. 

He  was  right.  A  still  greater  success  was 
about  to  crown  his  labors,  but  in  a  manner  far 
different  from  his  expectations.  His  experiments 
had  developed  nothing ;  chance  was  to  make  the 
revelation.  It  was  in  the  spring  of  1839,  ^^^  ^^ 
the  following  manner :  Standing  before  a  stove 
in  a  store  at  Woburn,  Mass.,  he  was  explaining 
to  some  acquaintances  the  properties  of  a  piece 
of  sulphur-cured  india-rubber  which  he  held  in 
his  hand.  They  listened  to  him  good-naturedly, 
but  with  evident  incredulity,  when  suddenly  he 
dropped  the  rubber  on  the  stove,  which  was  red 
hot.  His  old  clothes  would  have  melted  instantly 
from  contact  with  such  heat ;  but,  to  his  surprise, 
this  piece  underwent  no  such  change.  In  amaze- 
ment he  examined  it,  and  found  that  while  it  had 
charred  or  shrivelled  like  leather,  it  had  not  soft- 


168  INVENTORS 

ened  at  all.  The  bystanders  attached  no  impor- 
tance to  this  phenomenon,  but  to  him  it  was  a 
revelation.  He  renewed  his  experiments  with 
enthusiasm,  and  in  a  little  while  established  the 
facts  that  india-rubber,  when  mixed  with  sulphur 
and  exposed  to  a  certain  degree  of  heat  for  a 
specified  time,  would  not  melt  or  soften  at  any 
degree  of  heat ;  that  it  would  only  char  at  two 
hundred  and  eighty  degrees,  and  that  it  would 
not  stiffen  from  exposure  to  any  extent  of  cold. 
The  difficulty  now  consisted  in  finding  out  the 
exact  degree  of  heat  necessary  for  the  perfecting 
of  the  rubber  and  the  exact  length  of  time  re- 
quired for  the  heating. 

He  made  this  discovery  in  his  darkest  days, 
when,  in  fact,  he  was  in  constant  danger  of  arrest 
for  debt,  having  already  been  a  frequent  inmate 
of  the  debtors'  prison.  He  was  in  the  depths  of 
bitter  poverty  and  in  such  feeble  health  that  he 
was  constantly  haunted  by  the  fear  of  dying  be- 
fore he  had  perfected  his  discovery — before  he 
had  fulfilled  his  mission.  He  needed  an  appara- 
tus for  producing  a  high  and  uniform  heat  for  his 
experiments,  and  he  was  unable  to  obtain  it.  He 
used  to  bake  his  compound  in  his  wife's  bread- 
oven  and  steam  it  over  the  spout  of  her  tea- 
kettle, and  to  press  the  kitchen  fire  into  his  ser- 
vice so  far  as  it  would  go.  When  this  failed,  he 
would  go  down  to  the  shops  in  the  vicinity  of 
Woburn  and  beg  to  be  allowed  to  use  the  ovens 
and  boilers  after  working  hours  were  over.  The 
workmen  regarded  him  as  a  lunatic,  but  were  too 
good-natured  to  deny  him  the  request.      Finally 


170  INVENTORS 

he  induced  a  bricklayer  to  make  him  an  oven, 
and  paid  him  in  masons'  aprons  of  india-rubber. 
The  oven  was  a  failure.  Sometimes  it  would 
turn  out  pieces  of  perfectly  vulcanized  cloth, 
and  again  the  goods  would  be  charred  and 
ruined.     Goodyear  was  in  despair. 

All  this  time  he  lived  on  the  charity  of  his 
friends.  His  neighbors  pretended  to  lend  him 
money,  but  in  reality  gave  him  the  means  of 
keeping  his  family  from  starvation.  He  has  de- 
clared that  all  the  while  he  felt  sure  he  would, 
before  long,  be  able  to  pay  them  back,  but  they 
have  declared  with  equal  emphasis  that,  at  that 
time,  they  never  expected  to  witness  his  success. 
He  was  yellow  and  shrivelled  in  face,  with  a 
gaunt,  lean  figure,  and  his  habit  of  wearing  an 
india-rubber  coat,  which  was  charred  and  black- 
ened from  his  frequent  experiments  with  it,  gave 
him  a  wild  and  singular  appearance.  People 
shook  their  heads  solemnly  when  they  saw  him, 
and  said  that  the  mad-house  was  the  proper  place 
for  him. 

The  winter  of  1839-40  was  long  and  severe. 
At  the  opening  of  the  season  Goodyear  received 
a  letter  from  a  house  in  Paris,  making  him  a  hand- 
some offer  for  the  use  of  his  process  of  curing 
india  -  rubber  with  aqua  f ortis.  Here  was  a 
chance  for  him  to  rise  out  of  his  misery.  A 
year  before  he  would  have  closed  with  the  offer, 
but  since  then  he  had  discovered  the  effects  of 
sulphur  and  heat  on  his  compound,  and  had 
passed  far  beyond  the  aqua-fortis  stage.  Disap- 
pointment and  want   had  not   warped   his  con- 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  171 

science,  and  he  at  once  declined  to  enter  into  any 
arrangements  with  the  French  house,  informing 
them  that  although  the  process  they  desired  to 
purchase  was  a  valuable  one,  it  was  about  to  be 
entirely  replaced  by  another  which  he  was  then 
on  the  point  of  perfecting,  and  which  he  would 
gladly  sell  them  as  soon  as  he  had  completed  it. 
His  friends  declared  that  he  was  mad  to  refuse 
such  an  offer ;  but  he  replied  that  nothing  would 
induce  him  to  sell  a  process  which  he  knew  was 
about  to  be  rendered  worthless  by  still  greater 
discoveries. 

A  few  weeks  later  a  terrible  snow-storm  passed 
over  the  land,  one  of  the  worst  that  New  Eng- 
land had  ever  known,  and  in  the  midst  of  it 
Goodyear  made  the  appalling  discovery  that  he 
had  not  a  particle  of  fuel  or  a  mouthful  of  food 
in  the  house.  He  was  ill  enough  to  be  in  bed 
himself,  and  his  purse  was  entirely  empty.  It 
was  a  terrible  position,  made  worse,  too,  by  the 
fact  that  his  friends  who  had  formerly  aided  him 
had  turned  from  him,  vexed  with  his  pertinacity, 
and  abandoned  him  to  his  fate.  In  his  despair 
he  bethought  him  of  a  mere  acquaintance  named 
Coleridge,  who  lived  several  miles  from  his  cot- 
tage, and  who  but  a  few  days  before  had  spoken  to 
him  with  more  of  kindness  than  he  had  received  of 
late.  This  gentleman,  he  thought,  would  aid  him 
in  his  distress,  if  he  could  but  reach  his  house,  but 
in  such  a  snow  the  journey  seemed  hopeless  to  a 
man  in  his  feeble  health.  Still  the  effort  must  be 
made.  Nerved  by  despair,  he  set  out  and  pushed 
his   way   resolutely   through   the   heavy    drifts. 


172  INVENTORS 

The  way  was  long,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  would  never  accomplish  it.  Often  he  fell 
prostrate  on  the  snow,  almost  fainting  with  fa- 
tigue and  hunger,  and  again  he  would  sit  down 
wearily  in  the  road,  feeling  that  he  would  gladly 
die  if  his  discovery  were  but  completed.  At 
length,  however,  he  reached  the  end  of  his  jour- 
ney, and  fortunately  found  his  acquaintance  at 
home.  To  this  gentleman  he  told  the  story 
of  his  discovery,  his  hopes,  his  struggles,  and 
his  present  sufferings,  and  implored  him  to  help 
him.  Mr.  Coleridge  listened  to  him  kindly,  and 
after  expressing  the  warmest  sympathy  for  him, 
loaned  him  money  enough  to  support  his  family 
during  the  severe  weather  and  to  enable  him  to 
continue  his  experiments. 

Seeing  no  prospect  of  success  in  Massachu- 
setts, he  now  resolved  to  make  a  desperate  effort 
to  get  to  New  York,  feeling  confident  that  the 
specimens  he  could  take  with  him  would  con- 
vince someone  of  the  superiority  of  his  new 
method.  He  was  beginning  to  understand  the 
cause  of  his  many  failures,  but  he  saw  clearly 
that  his  compound  could  not  be  worked  with 
certainty  without  expensive  apparatus.  It  was 
a  very  delicate  operation,  requiring  exactness 
and  promptitude.  The  conditions  upon  which 
success  depended  were  many,  and  the  failure  of 
one  spoiled  all.  It  cost  him  thousands  of  fail- 
ures to  learn  that  a  little  acid  in  his  sulphur 
caused  the  blistering ;  that  his  compound  must 
be  heated  almost  immediately  after  being  mixed 
or  it  would  never  vulcanize ;  that  a  portion  of 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR 


173 


white  lead  in  the  compound  greatly  facilitated 
the  operation  and  improved  the  result ;  and  when 
he  had  learned  these  facts,  it  still  required  costly 
and  laborious  experiments  to  devise  the  best 
methods  of  compounding  his  ingredients  in  the 
best  proportions,  the  best  mode  of  heating,  the 
proper  duration  of  the  heating,  and  the  various 
useful  effects  that  could  be  produced  by  varying 


COUNCIL  MEDAL   OF   THE  EXHIBITION. 

C.  GOODVEAa    CLASS  XXVMI. 


1851, 


the  proportions  and  the  degree  of  heat.  He 
tells  us  that  many  times  when,  by  exhausting 
every  resource,  he  had  prepared  a  quantity  of 
his  compound  for  heating,  it  was  spoiled  because 
he  could  not,  with  his  inadequate  apparatus, 
apply  the  heat  soon  enough. 

To  New  York,  then,  he  directed  his  thoughts. 
Merely  to  get  there  cost  him  a  severer  and  a 
longer  effort  than  men  in  general  are  capable  of 
making.     First  he  walked  to  Boston,  ten  miles 


174  INVENTORS 

distant,  where  he  hoped  to  borrow  from  an  old 
acquaintance  $50,  with  which  to  provide  for 
his  family  and  pay  his  fare  to  New  York.  He 
not  only  failed  in  this,  but  he  was  arrested  for 
debt  and  thrown  into  prison.  Even  in  prison, 
while  his  old  father  was  negotiating  to  procure 
his  release,  he  labored  to  interest  men  of  capital 
in  his  discovery,  and  made  proposals  for  found- 
ing a  factory  in  Boston.  Having  obtained  his 
liberty,  he  went  to  a  hotel  and  spent  a  week  in 
vain  efforts  to  effect  a  small  loan.  Saturday 
night  came,  and  with  it  his  hotel  bill,  which  he 
had  no  means  of  discharging.  In  an  agony  of 
shame  and  anxiety,  he  went  to  a  friend  and  en- 
treated the  sum  of  $5  to  enable  him  to  return 
home.  He  was  met  with  a  point-blank  refusal. 
In  the  deepest  dejection,  he  walked  the  streets 
till  late  in  the  night,  and  strayed  at  length, 
almost  beside  himself,  to  Cambridge,  Avhere  he 
ventured  to  call  upon  a  friend  and  ask  shelter 
for  the  night.  He  was  hospitably  entertained, 
and  the  next  morning  walked  wearily  home, 
penniless  and  despairing.  At  the  door  of  his 
house  a  member  of  his  family  met  him  with  the 
news  that  his  youngest  child,  two  years  old, 
whom  he  had  left  in  perfect  health,  was  dying. 
In  a  few  hours  he  had  in  his  house  a  dead 
child,  but  not  the  means  of  burying  it,  and  five 
living  dependents  without  a  morsel  of  food  to 
give  them.  A  storekeeper  near  by  had  prom- 
ised to  supply  the  family,  but,  discouraged  by 
the  unforeseen  length  of  the  father's  absence,  he 
had  that  day  refused  to  trust  them  further.     In 


CHARLE8  GOODYEAR  175 

these  terrible  circumstances  he  applied  to  a 
friend,  upon  whose  generosity  he  knew  he  could 
rely,  one  who  never  failed  him.  He  received  in 
reply  a  letter  of  severe  and  cutting  reproach, 
enclosing  $7,  which  his  friend  explained  was 
given  only  out  of  pity  for  his  innocent  and  suf- 
ering  family.  A  stranger  who  chanced  to  be 
present  when  this  letter  arrived  sent  them  a  bar- 
rel of  flour,  a  timely  and  blessed  relief.  The 
next  day  the  family  followed  on  foot  the  remains 
of  the  little  child  to  the  grave. 

This  was  about  the  darkest  hour  of  poor  Good- 
year's  life,  but  it  was  before  the  dawn.  He  man- 
aged to  obtain  $50,  with  which  he  went  to 
New  York,  and  succeeded  in  interesting  two 
brothers,  William  and  Emory  Rider,  in  his  dis- 
coveries. They  agreed  to  advance  to  him  a 
certain  sum  to  complete  his  experiments.  By 
means  of  this  aid  he  was  enabled  to  keep  his 
family  from  want,  and  his  experiments  were  pur- 
sued with  greater  ease  and  certainty.  His 
brother-in-law,  William  De  Forrest,  a  rich  wool 
manufacturer,  also  came  to  his  aid,  now  that 
success  seemed  in  view.  Nevertheless,  the  ex- 
periments of  that  and  the  following  year  cost 
nearly  $50,000.  Thanks  to  this  timely  aid,  he 
was  able  in  1844,  ten  years  after  beginning  his 
work,  to  produce  perfect  vulcanized  india-rub- 
ber with  economy  and  certainty.  To  the  end  of 
his  life  he  Avas  at  work,  however,  endeavoring 
to  improve  the  material  and  apply  it  to  new  uses. 
He  took  out  more  than  sixty  patents  cover- 
ing different  processes  of  making  rubber  goods. 


176 


INVENTORS 


If  Goodyear  had  been  a  man  of  business  in- 
stincts and  habits,  the  years  following  the  comple- 
tion of  his  great  work  might  have  brought  him 
an  immense  fortune  ;  but  everywhere  he  seems 
to  have  been  unfortunate  in  protecting  his  rights. 
In  France  and  England  he  lost  his  patent  rights 
by  technical  defects.  In  the  latter  country  an- 
other  man,    who   had  received   a   copy    of   the 

GRANDE   MEDAILLE   D'HONNEUR. 

EXPOSITION  UNIVCRSELLE  OE   1853. 


Donne  pou?  ta  Oecouverte  de  la  VulcimfsatUn  et  0urcf$5ement  <!u  Caoutchouc 
JAC-SIMILE    GOLD. 


American  patent,  actually  applied  and  obtained 
the  English  rights  in  his  own  name.  Goodyear, 
however,  obtained  the  great  council  medal  at 
the  London  Exhibition  of  185 1,  a  grand  medal  at 
Paris,  in  1855,  and  later  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  In  this  country  he  was  scarcely  less 
unfortunate.  His  patents  were  infringed  right 
and  left,  he  was  cheated  by  business  associates 
and  plundered  of  the  profits  of  his  invention. 
The  United  States  Commissioner  of  Patents,  in 
1858,  thus  spoke  of  his  losses: 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR  177 

"  No  inventor,  probably,  has  ever  been  so 
harassed,  so  trampled  upon,  so  plundered  by 
that  sordid  and  licentious  class  of  infringers 
known  in  the  parlance  of  the  world  as  *  pirates.' 
The  spoliation  of  their  incessant  guerilla  war- 
fare upon  his  defenceless  rights  has  unquestion- 
ably amounted  to  millions." 

Gopdyear  died  in  New  York  in  July,  i860, 
worn  out  with  work  and  disappointment.  Nei- 
ther Europe  nor  America  seemed  disposed  to 
accord  him  any  reward  or  credit  for  having 
made  one  of  the  greatest  discoveries  of  the  time. 
Notwithstanding  his  invention,  which  has  made 
millions  for  those  engaged  in  working  it,  he  died 
insolvent,  and  left  his  family  heavily  in  debt.  A 
few  years  after  his  death  an  effort  was  made  to 
procure  from  Congress  an  extension  of  his  pat- 
ent for  the  benefit  of  his  family  and  creditors. 
The  opposition  of  the  men  who  had  grown  rich 
and  powerful  by  successfully  infringing  his 
rights  prevented  that  august  body  from  doing 
justice  in  the  matter  and  the  effort  came  to 
nothing. 


VII. 
JOHN  ERICSSON. 

Captain  John  Ericsson,  although  not  by 
birth  an  x\merican,  rendered  such  signal  services 
to  this  country  and  lived  here  for  so  many  years 
that  we  may  fairly  consider  him  in  the  light  of 
an  American  inventor.  The  inventions  to  which 
he  devoted  the  best  years  of  his  life  were  made 
in  this  country.  He  loved  America,  he  died 
here,  and  though  his  ashes  have  been  sent  back 
to  Sweden,  the  world  of  Europe,  in  common 
with  ourselves,  probably  thinks  of  Ericsson  as 
an  American. 

By  the  roadside  near  a  mountain  hamlet  of 
Central  Sweden  stands  a  pyramid  of  iron  cast 
from  ore  dug  from  the  adjacent  mines  and  set 
upon  a  base  of  granite  quarried  from  the  hills 
which  overlook  the  valley.  This  monument  bears 
the  information  that  two  brothers,  Nils  Erics- 
son and  John  Ericsson,  were  born  in  a  miner's 
hut  at  that  place,  respectively,  January  31,  1802, 
and  July  31,  1803.  Nils  Ericsson  was  a  man  of 
unusual  distinction,  who  held  high  position  in 
Sweden  as  engineer  of  the  canals  and  railroads 
of  the  kingdom.  The  name  of  his  brother  is 
known  the  world  over.  These  two  notable 
Swedes  were  sons  of  Olof  Ericsson,  a  Swedish 


John   Ericsson. 


JOHN  ERICSSON  179 

miner.  Poverty  was  one  of  the  bits  of  good 
fortune  that  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  two  boys,  and 
among  John's  earliest  recollections  is  that  of  the 
seizure  of  their  household  effects  by  the  sheriff. 
The  mother  was  a  woman  of  intelligence  and 
somewhat  acquainted  with  the  literature  of  her 
time.  In  boyhood  John  Ericsson  worked  in  the 
iron  mines  of  Central  Sweden.  Machinery  was 
his  first  love  and  his  last.  Before  he  was  eleven 
years  old,  during  the  winter  of  1813,  he  had  pro- 
duced a  miniature  saw-mill  of  ingenious  con- 
struction, and  had  planned  a  pumping-engine 
designed  to  keep  the  mines  free  from  water. 
The  frame  of  the  saw -mill  was  of  wood;  the 
saw-blade  was  made  from  a  watch-spring  and 
was  moved  by  a  crank  made  from  a  broken  tin 
spoon.  A  file,  borrowed  from  a  neighboring 
blacksmith,  a  gimlet,  and  a  jack-knife  were  the 
only  tools  used  in  this  work.  His  pumping-en- 
gine was  a  more  ambitious  affair,  to  be  operated 
by  a  wind-mill. 

The  family  then  lived  in  the  wilderness,  sur- 
rounded by  a  pine  forest,  where  Ericsson's  father 
was  engaged  in  selecting  timber  for  the  lock- 
gates  of  a  canal.  A  quill  and  a  pencil  were  the 
boy's  tools  in  the  way  of  drawing  materials.  He 
made  compasses  of  birch  wood.  A  pair  of  steel 
tweezers  were  converted  into  a  drawing-pen. 
Ericsson  had  never  seen  a  wind-mill,  but  follow- 
ing as  well  as  he  could  the  description  of  those 
who  had,  he  succeeded  in  constructing  on  paper 
the  mechanism  connecting  the  crank  of  a  wind- 
mill with  the  pump-lever.     The  plan,  conceived 


dv 


,f* 


JOHN  ERICSSON  181 

and  executed  under  such  circumstances  by  a 
mere  boy,  attracted  the  attention  of  Count 
Platen,  president  of  the  Gotha  Ship  Canal,  on 
which  Ericsson's  father  was  employed,  and  when 
Ericsson  was  twelve  years  old  he  was  made 
a  member  of  the  surveying  party  carrying  out 
the  canal  work  and  put  in  charge  of  a  section. 
Six  hundred  of  the  royal  troops  looked  for  direc- 
tions in  their  daily  work  to  this  boy,  one  of  his 
attendants  being  a  man  who  followed  him  with 
a  stool,  upon  which  he  stood  to  use  the  survey- 
ing instruments.  The  amusements  of  this  boy 
engineer,  even  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  are  indicated 
by  a  portfolio  of  drawings  made  in  his  leisure 
moments,  giving  maps  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  the  canal,  three  hundred  miles  in  length, 
and  showing  all  the  machinery  used  in  its  con- 
struction. His  precocity  was,  however,  the  nor- 
mal and  healthy  development  of  a  mind  as  fond 
of  mechanical  principles  as  Raphael  was  of  color. 
It  was  in  1811  that  Ericsson  made  his  first 
scale  drawing  of  the  famous  Sunderland  Iron 
Bridge,  and  from  that  time  on  his  career  in 
Sweden  was  a  brilliant  one.  After  serving  as  an 
engineer  upon  the  Gotha  Canal  he  became  an 
officer  in  the  Swedish  army,  from  which  circum- 
stance he  got  his  title  of  captain.  Most  govern- 
ment work  was  then  done  by  army  officers,  espe- 
cially in  field  surveying.  The  appointments  of 
government  surveyors  being  offered  soon  after- 
ward to  competitive  examination  among  the  offi- 
cers of  the  army,  Ericsson  went  to  Stockholm 
and   entered   the  lists.     Detailed   maps   of  fifty 


182  INVENTORS 

square  miles  of  Swedish  territory,  still  upon  file  at 
Stockholm,  show  his  skill.  Though  his  work  as 
a  surveyor  exceeded  that  of  any  of  his  compan- 
ions, he  was  not  satisfied.  He  sought  an  outlet 
for  his  superfluous  activity  in  preparing  the  draw- 
ings and  engraving  sixty-four  large  plates  for  a 
work  illustrating  the  Gotha  Canal.  His  faculty 
for  invention  was  shown  here  by  the  construc- 
tion of  a  machine-engraver,  with  which  eighteen 
copper-plates  were  completed  by  his  own  hand 
within  a  year. 

From  engraving  young  Ericsson  turned  his 
attention  to  experiments  with  flame  as  a  means 
of  producing  mechanical  power,  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  forty  years  afterward  a  large 
part  of  his  income  in  this  country  was  derived 
from  his  gas-  or  flame-engine,  thousands  of  which 
are  now  in  use  in  New  York  City  alone  for 
pumping  water  up  to  the  tops  of  the  houses. 
His  early  flame-engine,  as  it  was  called,  turned 
out  so  well  that  after  building  one  of  ten  horse- 
power, he  obtained  leave  of  absence  to  go  to 
England  to  introduce  the  invention.  He  never 
returned  to  Sweden  for  any  length  of  time, 
although  he  remained  a  Swede  at  heart,  and 
many  Swedish  orders  and  decorations  have  been 
conferred  upon  him.  In  addition  to  the  monu- 
ment near  Ericsson's  birthplace,  already  men- 
tioned, the  government  has  erected  a  granite 
shaft,  eighteen  feet  high,  in  front  of  the  cot- 
tage in  which  he  was  born.  This  shaft,  bearing 
the  inscription,  *'John  Ericsson  was  born  here 
in  1803,"  was  dedicated  on  September   3,   1867, 


JOHN  ERIOSSON  183 

when  work  was  suspended  in  the  neighboring 
mines  and  iron  furnaces,  and  a  holiday  was  held 
in  honor  of  Sweden's  famous  son.  Poems  were 
read,  the  chief  engineer  of  the  mining  district 
delivered  an  oration,  and  Dr.  Pallin,  a  savant 
from  Philipstad,  reminded  his  hearers  that  seven 
cities  in  Greece  contended  for  the  honor  of  be- 
ing Homer's  birthplace.  ''  Certificates  of  bap- 
tism did  not  then  exist,"  said  Dr.  Pallin,  "  and 
there  is  no  doubt  with  us  as  to  Ericsson's  birth- 
place ;  yet  to  guard  against  all  accidents  we 
have  here  placed  a  record  of  baptism  weigh- 
ing eighty  thousand  pounds."  The  monument 
stands  on  an  isthmus  between  two  lakes  sur- 
rounded by  green  hills. 

Ericsson's  life  in  England  began  in  1826.  For- 
tune did  not  smile  upon  his  efforts  to  introduce 
his  flame  -  engine,  for  the  coal  fire  which  had 
to  be  used  in  England  was  too  severe  for  the 
working  parts  of  the  apparatus.  But  Ericsson 
possessed  a  capacity  for  hard  work  that  recog- 
nized no  obstacles.  He  undertook  a  new  series 
of  experiments  which  resulted  finally  in  the  com- 
pletion of  an  engine  which  was  patented  and 
sold  to  John  Braithwaite.  Young  Ericsson's  ca- 
pacity for  work  and  for  keeping  half  a  dozen  ex- 
periments in  view  at  the  same  time  seems  to  have 
been  as  remarkable  in  those  early  days  as  when 
he  became  famous.  Records  of  the  London 
Patent  Office  credit  him  with  invention  after 
invention.  Among  these  were  a  pumping-engine 
on  a  new  principle  ;  engines  with  surface  con- 
densers and   no  smoke-stack,  as  applied  to  the 


-   l.-.:> 


JOHN  ERICSSON  185 

Steamship  Victory  in  1828;  an  apparatus  for 
making  salt  from  brine  ;  for  propelling  boats 
on  canals ;  a  hydrostatic  weighing  machine,  to 
which  the  Society  of  Arts  awarded  a  prize ;  an 
instrument  to  be  used  in  taking  deep-sea  sound- 
ings ;  a  file-cutting  machine.  The  list  covers 
some  fourteen  patented  inventions  and  forty  ma- 
chines. 

Perhaps  his  most  important  work  at  this  pe- 
riod was  a  device  for  creating  artificial  draught 
in  locomotives,  to  which  aid  the  development  of 
our  railroad  owes  much.  In  1829  the  Liverpool 
&  Manchester  Railroad  offered  a  prize  of  $2,500 
for  the  best  locomotive  capable  of  doing  cer- 
tain work.  The  prize  was  taken  by  Stephenson 
with  his  famous  Rocket ;  but  his  sharpest  com- 
petitor in  this  contest  was  John  Ericsson,  Four 
locomotives  entered  the  contest.  The  London 
Times  of  October  8,  1829,  speaks  highly  of  the 
Novelty,  the  locomotive  entered  by  Messrs. 
Braithwaite  &  Ericsson,  saying :  "  It  was  the 
lightest  and  most  elegant  carriage  on  the  road 
yesterday,  and  the  velocity  with  which  it  moved 
surprised  and  amazed  every  beholder.  It  shot 
along  the  line  at  the  amazing  rate  of  thirty  miles 
an  hour.  It  seemed  indeed  to  fly,  presenting 
one  of  the  most  sublime  spectacles  of  human 
ingenuity  and  human  daring  the  world  ever 
beheld." 

The  railroad  directors,  at  whose  invitation  this 
test  was  made,  had  asked  for  ten  miles  an  hour ; 
Ericsson  gave  them  thirty.  The  excitement  of 
the  witnesses  found  vent  in  loud  cheers.    Within 


186 


INVENTORS 


an  hour  the  shares  of  the  railroad  company  rose 
ten  per  cent.,  and  the  young  engineer  might  well 
have  considered  his  fortune  made.    But  although 


''/  /T-^ 


Ericsson  on  his  Arrival   in  England,  aged  twenty-three. 

he  had  beaten  his  rival  ten  miles  an  hour,  the 
judges  determined  to  make  traction  power, 
rather  than  speed,  the  critical  test,  and  the  prize 
was    awarded  to    Stephenson's  Rocket,    which 


JOHN  ERICSSON 


187 


drew  seventeen  tons  for  seventy  miles  at  the  rate 
of  thirteen  miles  an  hour.  Stephenson's  engine 
weighed  twice  as  much  as  Ericsson's.    Neverthe- 


Mrs.  John  Ericsson,  n4e  Annelia  Byam, 
(From  an  early  daguerreotype.) 


less  Ericsson's  success  with  the  Novelty  was 
such  as  to  keep  him  busy  in  this  particular  field. 
He  followed  it  up  with  a  steam  fire-engine  that 
astonished  London  at  the  burning  of  the  Argyle 


188  INVENTORS 

Rooms,  in  1829,  when  for  the  first  time,  as  one 
of  the  local  papers  remarked,  "  fire  was  ex- 
tinguished by  the  mechanical  power  of  fire." 
Another  engine,  of  larger  power,  built  for  the 
King  of  Prussia,  soon  after  rendered  excellent 
service  in  Berlin,  and  a  third  was  built  for  Liv- 
erpool in  1830.  Ten  years  afterward  the  Me- 
chanics' Institute  of  New  York  awarded  a  gold 
medal  to  Ericsson  as  a  prize  for  the  best  plan  of 
a  steam-engine. 

Disappointed  in  his  ill  success  with  inven- 
tions pertaining  to  locomotives,  Ericsson  now 
turned  his  attention  to  his  early  flame-engine, 
and  the  working  model  of  a  caloric  engine  of 
five-horse  power  soon  attracted  the  attention  of 
London.  At  first  there  seemed  to  be  a  great 
future  for  engines  upon  this  principle,  but  after 
many  years  of  experiments,  at  great  expense, 
Ericsson  found  that  the  principle  was  useful  only 
for  purposes  requiring  small  power.  In  1851  he 
built  a  heat-engine  for  the  ship  Ericsson,  a  vessel 
two  hundred  and  sixty  feet  in  length,  and  tells 
the  result  as  follows :  "  The  ship  after  comple- 
tion made  a  successful  trip  from  New  York  to 
Washington  and  back  during  the  winter  season ; 
but  the  average  speed  at  sea  proving  insufficient 
for  commercial  purposes,  the  owners,  with  re- 
gret, acceded  to  my  proposition  to  remove  the 
costly  machinery,  although  it  had  proved  perfect 
as  a  mechanical  combination.  The  resources  of 
modern  engineering  having  been  exhausted  in 
producing  the  motors  of  the  caloric  ship,  the  im- 
portant question,  Can  heated  air,  as  a  mechan- 


190  INVENTORS 

ical  motor,  compete  on  a  large  scale  with  steam  ? 
has  forever  been  set  at  rest.  The  commercial 
world  is  indebted  to  American  enterprise  for 
having  settled  a  question  of  such  vital  impor- 
tance. The  marine  engineer  has  thus  been  en- 
couraged to  renew  his  efforts  to  perfect  the 
steam-engine  without  fear  of  rivalry  from  a  mo- 
tor depending  on  the  dilation  of  atmospheric  air 
by  heat." 

Before  leaving  this  question  of  heat-engines 
and  passing  to  the  more  important  inventions  by 
which  Ericsson  will  be  remembered,  it  may  be 
as  well  to  say  a  few  words  concerning  the  solar- 
engines  to  which  he  devoted  many  years'  time, 
and  one  of  which  I  saw  in  operation  in  the  back 
yard  of  the  pleasant  old  house  in  Beach  Street, 
opposite  the  freight  depot  of  the  Hudson  River 
Railroad.  This  house,  by  the  way,  which  Erics- 
son occupied  for  nearly  forty  years,  faced  on  St. 
John's  Park,  the  pleasant  square  which  was  after- 
ward filled  up  by  the  railroad  company.  Tow- 
ard the  last  years  of  Ericsson's  life  the  neigh- 
borhood became  anything  but  a  pleasant  one  to 
live  in ;  it  was  dirty  and  noisy.  Nevertheless 
Ericsson  refused  to  move.  Perhaps  the  unpleas- 
antness of  the  surroundings  made  him  the  recluse 
he  was.  It  is  not  surprising  that  he  should  have 
been  attracted  by  the  possibility  of  obtaining 
power  from  the  heat  of  the  sun.  In  an  early 
pamphlet  on  the  subject  he  says :  ''  There  is  a 
rainless  region  extending  from  the  northwestern 
coast  of  Africa  to  Mongolia,  nine  thousand  miles 
in  length  and  nearly  one  thousand  miles  wide. 


JOHN  ERIG880N 


191 


In  the  Western  Hemisphere,  Lower  California, 
the  table-lands  of  Guatemala,  and  the  west  coast 
of  South  America,  for  a  distance  of  more  than  two 
thousand  miles,  suffer  from  a  continuous  radiant 


Solar-engine  Adapted  to  the  Use  of  Hot  Air. 
(Patented  as  a  pumping-engine,  1880.) 

heat."  Ericsson  estimated  that  the  mechanical 
power  that  would  result  from  utilizing  the  solar 
heat  on  a  strip  of  land  a  single  mile  wide  and 
eight  thousand  miles  long  would  suffice  to  keep 
twenty-two  million  solar-engines,  of  one  hundred 


192  INVENTORS 

horse-power  each,  going-  nine  hours  a  day.  He 
believed  that  with  the  exhaustion  of  European 
coal-fields  the  day  for  the  solar-engine  would 
come,  and  that  those  countries  which  possessed 
unfailing  sunshine,  such  as  Egypt,  would  displace 
England,  France,  and  Germany  as  the  manufact- 
uring powers  of  the  world,  for  the  European 
would  have  to  move  his  machinery  to  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Nile.  By  concentrating  the  rays  of 
the  sun  upon  a  small  copper  boiler  filled  with 
air  Ericsson  was  enabled  to  work  a  little  motor, 
and  for  some  years  he  also  attempted  to  produce 
steam  by  means  of  heat  from  the  sun.  He  was 
not  successful,  however,  in  making  anything  of 
commercial  value  in  this  direction,  and  so  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  learn  none  of  the  tropical 
countries  invited  by  him  to  take  up  the  problem 
for  its  own  benefit  responded  to  the  invitation. 

Ericsson's  studies  and  improvements  of  the 
screw  as  a  means  of  propelling  boats  began  in 
England.  A  model  boat,  two  feet  long,  fitted 
up  with  two  screws,  was  launched  in  a  London 
bath-house,  and,  supplied  by  steam  from  a  boiler 
placed  at  the  side  of  the  tank,  was  sent  around 
at  a  speed  estimated  at  six  miles  an  hour.  Erics- 
son was  so  delighted  with  it  that  he  built  a  boat 
eight  feet  by  forty,  armed  with  two  propellers, 
in  the  hope  that  the  British  Admiralty  might 
adopt  the  invention.  This  boat  went  through 
the  water  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  or 
seven  miles  an  hour  towing  a  schooner  of  one 
hundred  and  forty  tons  burden.  He  invited  the 
Admiralty  to  see  the  work  of  his  screw.     Steam= 


JOHN  ERICSSON  193 

ing  up  to  Somerset  House  with  his  little  ves- 
sel, Ericsson  took  the  Admiralty  barge  in  tow,  to 
the  wonder  of  the  watermen,  who  could  make 
nothing  of  the  novel  craft  with  no  apparent 
means  of  propulsion.  The  British  Admiralty, 
however,  was  uot  easily  convinced.  These  wise- 
acres said  nothing,  but  Ericsson  professed  to 
have  heard  that  their  verdict  was  against  him 
because  one  of  the  authorities  of  the  board  de- 
cided that  "  even  if  the  propeller  had  the  power 
of  propelling  a  vessel  it  would  be  found  alto- 
gether useless  in  practice,  because  the  power, 
being  applied  to  the  stern,  it  would  be  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  make  the  vessel  steer." 

This  official  blindness  cost  England  the  ser- 
vices of  the  inventor.  The  United  States  hap- 
pened to  have  as  consul  in  Liverpool  at  that  day 
(1837)  Mr.  Francis  B.  Ogden,  a  pioneer  in  steam 
navigation  on  the  Ohio  River.  Ogden  saw 
Ericsson's  invention  and  introduced  him  to  Cap- 
tain Robert  F.  Stockton,  of  the  United  States 
Navy.  With  Stockton,  seeing  was  believing,  and 
when  he  returned  from  a  trip  on  Ericsson's  boat, 
he  exclaimed :  ''  I  do  not  want  the  opinion  of 
your  scientific  men.  What  I  have  seen  to-day 
satisfies  me."  Before  the  vessel  had  completed 
her  trip,  Ericsson  received  from  Stockton  an 
order  for  two  boats.  Upon  Stockton's  assur- 
ance that  the  United  States  would  try  his  pro- 
peller upon  a  large  scale,  Ericsson  closed  up  his 
affairs  in  England  and  embarked  for  the  United 
States.  Through  the  good  offices  of  Stockton, 
but  after  considerable  delay,  a  vessel  called  the 
13 


194  INVENTORS 

Princeton  was  ordered  and  completed.  She 
carried  a  number  of  radical  improvements  des- 
tined to  make  a  revolution  in  naval  warfare. 
The  boilers  and  engines  were  below  the  water- 
line,  out  of  the  way  of  shot  and  shell.  The 
smoke-stack  was  a  telescopic  affair,  replacing 
the  tall  pipe  that  formed  so  conspicuous  a  target 
upon  the  old  boats.  Centrifugal  blowers  in  the 
hold,  worked  by  separate  engines,  secured  in- 
creased draught  for  the  furnaces.  The  Prince- 
ton was  a  wonder,  and  everyone  was  ready  to 
praise  the  inventive  genius  of  Ericsson  and  the 
daring  of  Captain  Stockton  in  adopting  so  many 
radical  novelties.  An  entry  in  the  diary  of  John 
Quincy  Adams,  dated  February  28,  1844,  tells 
the  sad  story  of  the  public  exhibition  of  the 
Princeton  at  Washington : 

"  I  w^ent  into  the  chamber  of  the  Committee  of 
Manufactures  and  wrote  there  till  six.  Dined 
with  Mr.  Grinnell  and  Mr.  Winthrop.  While 
we  were  at  dinner  John  Barney  burst  into  the 
chamber,  rushed  up  to  General  Scott  and  told 
him,  with  groans,  that  the  President  wished  to 
see  him  ;  that  the  great  gun  on  board  the  Prince- 
ton had  burst  and  killed  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Upshur ;  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  T.  W.  Gil- 
mer ;  Captain  Beverly  Kennon,  Virgil  Maxey,  a 
Colonel  Gardiner,  of  New  York,  a  colored  ser- 
vant of  the  President,  and  desperately  wounded 
several  of  the  crew." 

So  tragic  an  introduction  was  not  needed  to 
direct  public  attention  to  the  Princeton.  Erics- 
son had  placed  the  United  States  at  the  head  of 


JOHN  EBIGSSON  195 

naval  powers  in  the  application  of  steam-power 
to  warfare.  He  had  made  the  experiment  of  the 
Princeton  at  a  great  cost  to  himself,  and  two 
years  of  concentrated  effort  had  been  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  Government.  For  his 
time,  labor,  and  necessary  expenditures  he  ren- 
dered a  bill  of  $15,000,  leaving  the  question  of 
what,  if  anything,  should  be  charged  for  his 
patent  rights  entirely  to  the  discretion  and  gen- 
erosity of  the  Government.  The  bill  was  refused 
payment  by  the  Navy  Department  because  of 
its  limited  discretion.  Ericsson  went  to  Con- 
gress with  it,  but  a  dozen  years  passed  without 
the  slightest  progress  toward  a  settlement.  A 
court  of  claims  rendered  a  unanimous  decree  in 
his  favor,  but  Congress,  to  which  the  bill  was 
again  sent,  failed  to  make  an  appropriation,  and 
there  the  matter  has  remained,  notwithstanding 
the  brilliant  services  since  rendered  to  this  coun- 
tr}^  by  the  inventor. 

Various  nations  claim  the  invention  of  the 
screw  as  applied  to  boats.  At  Triest  and  at 
Vienna  stand  statues  erected  to  Joseph  Ressel, 
for  whom  the  Austrians  lay  claim.  Commodore 
Stevens,  of  New  Jersey,  is  also  said  by  Professor 
Thurston  to  have  built  and  worked  a  screw-pro- 
peller on  the  Hudson  in  18 12.  Whatever  may 
be  the  final  decision  as  to  Ericsson's  claim  in 
this  matter,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
value  of  the  services  he  rendered  in  building  the 
Monitor.  The  suggestion  of  the  Monitor  was 
first  made  in  a  communication  from  Ericsson  to 
Napoleon    HI.,    dated    New   York,    September, 


196  INVENTORS 

1854.  This  paper  contained  a  description  of  an 
iron-clad  vessel  surmounted  by  a  cupola  substan- 
tially as  in  the  Monitor  as  finally  built.  The 
emperor,  through  General  Favre,  acknowledged 
the  communication.  Favre  wrote:  "The  em- 
peror has  himself  examined  with  the  greatest 
care  the  new  system  of  naval  attack  which  you 
have  communicated  to  him.  His  Majesty  charges 
me  with  the  honor  of  informing  you  that  he  has 
found  your  ideas  very  ingenious  and  worthy  of 
the  celebrated  name  of  their  author."  For  eight 
years  Ericsson  continued  working  upon  his  idea 
of  a  revolving  cupola  or  turret  upon  an  iron-clad 
raft,  but  found  no  opportunity  to  test  the  practi- 
cal value  of  the  device.  His  time  finally  came 
when,  in  1861,  the  Navy  Department  appointed 
a  board  to  examine  plans  for  iron-clads.  The 
board  consisted  of  Commodores  Joseph  Smith, 
Hiram  Paulding,  and  Charles  H.  Davis.  Erics- 
son, having  learned  to  distrust  his  own  powers 
as  a  business  agent,  engaged  the  assistance  of  C. 
S.  Bushnell,  a  Connecticut  man  of  some  wealth, 
who  went  to  Washington  and  presented  the  de- 
signs of  the  Monitor  to  the  board. 

Colonel  W.  C.  Church,  Ericsson's  biographer, 
who  has  just  been  honored  by  Sweden  for  his 
publications  upon  the  life  of  the  inventor,  tells 
an  interesting  story  of  the  negotiations  concern- 
ing the  vessel  which  was  to  render  such  signal 
services  to  the  country.  Bushnell  could  make 
no  headway  with  the  board  and  decided  that 
Ericsson's  presence  in  Washington  was  necessary. 
But  the  inventor  was  then,  as  during  his  whole 


JOHN  ERICSSON  197 

life,  averse  to  any  self-advertisement,  and  pre- 
ferred his  workshop  to  any  place  on  earth.  But 
as  he  possessed  a  sort  of  rude  eloquence  due  to 
enthusiasm,  Bushnell  got  him  to  Washington  by 
subterfuge.  He  was  told  that  the  board  ap- 
proved his  plans  for  an  iron-clad  and  that  it 
would  be  necessary  for  him  to  go  to  the  capital 
and  complete  the  contract.  Presenting  himself 
before  the  board,  what  was  his  astonishment  to 
find  that  he  was  not  only  an  unexpected  but  ap- 
parently an  unwelcome  visitor.  He  was  not 
long  in  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  recep- 
tion. To  his  indignation  and  astonishment  he 
was  informed  that  the  plan  of  a  vessel  submitted 
by  him  had  already  been  rejected.  His  first  im- 
pulse was  to  withdraw  at  once.  Mastering  his 
anger,  however,  he  inquired  the  reason  for  this 
decision.  Commodore  Smith  explained  that  the 
vessel  had  not  sufficient  stability ;  in  other  words, 
it  would  be  liable  to  upset.  Captain  Ericsson 
was  too  experienced  a  naval  designer  to  have 
overlooked  this  point,  and  in  a  lucid  explanation 
put  his  views  before  the  board,  winding  up  with 
the  declaration :  "  Gentlemen,  after  what  I  have 
said,  I  consider  it  to  be  your  duty  to  the  country 
to  give  me  an  order  to  build  the  vessel  before  I 
leave  this  room." 

Withdrawing  to  a  corner  the  board  held  a  con- 
sultation and  invited  the  inventor  to  call  again 
at  one  o'clock.  When  Ericsson  returned  he 
brought  with  him  a  diagram  illustrating  more 
fully  his  reasons  for  considering  his  proposed 
vessel  to  be  perfectly  stable.    Commodore,  after- 


198 


INVENTORS 


ward  Admiral,  Paulding  was  convinced,  and  ad- 
mitted that  Ericsson  had  taught  him  much  about 
the  stability  of  vessels.  Secretary  Welles  was 
informed  that  the  board  reported  favorably  upon 
Ericsson's  plan,  and  told  the  inventor  that  he 
might  return  to  New  York  and  begin  work,  as 
the  contract  would  follow  him.     When  the  con- 


Sectional  View  of  Monitor  tlirough  Turret  and  Pilot-house. 


tract  came  it  was  found  to  be  a  singularly  one- 
sided affair.  If  the  Monitor  proved  vulnerable 
— in  other  words,  if  it  was  not  a  success — the 
money  paid  for  it  by  the  Navy  Department  was 
to  be  refunded. 

It  took  one  hundred  days  to  build  the  Monitor. 
During  those  three  months  Ericsson  scarcely 
slept,  and  even  in  his  dreams  he  went  over  the 
details   of   the   new-fangled  war-engine   he  was 


JOHN  ERICSSON 


199 


building.  He  named  her  Monitor  because,  he 
said,  she  would  warn  the 
nations  of  the  world  that 
a  new  era  in  naval  warfare 
had  begun.  The  story  of 
his  untiring  activity  has 
been  told  almost  as  often 
as  that  of  the  battle  be- 
tween the  Monitor  and 
the  Merrimac.  He  was  at 
the  ship-yard  before  any 
of  the  workmen,  and  was 
the  last  to  leave.  In  the 
construction  of  so  novel  a 
craft  difficulties  of  a  puz- 
zling nature  came  up  every  __ 
day.  If  Ericsson  could  not 
solve  them  on  the  spot,  he 
studied  the  matter  in  the 
quiet  of  the  night,  and  was 
ready  with  his  drawings 
in  the  morning.  The  re- 
sult of  the  naval  battle  in 
Hampton  Roads,  on  the 
9th  of  March,  1862,  be- 
tween the  little  Monitor 
and  the  big  Merrimac 
made  Ericsson  the  hero  of 
the  hour.  Had  no  David 
appeared  to  stop  the  rav- 
ages of  the  Confederate 
Goliath,  it  is  hard  to  say  what  might  not  have 
been  the  injury  inflicted  upon  the  cause  of  the 


200  INVENTORS 

Union  by  the  terrible  Merrimac.  The  United 
States  Navy  was  virtually  panic-stricken  when 
the  Monitor,  this  ''  Yankee  cheese  -  box  on  a 
plank,"  as  the  Southerners  called  her,  came  to 
the  rescue. 

Notwithstanding  the  tremendous  service  ren- 
dered the  country,  Ericsson  declined  to  receive 
more  compensation  for  the  Monitor  than  his  con- 
tract called  for.  In  reply  to  a  resolution  of  the 
New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce  calling  for 
"  a  suitable  return  for  his  services  as  will  evince 
the  gratitude  of  the  nation,"  Ericsson  said  :  ''  All 
the  remuneration  I  desire  for  the  Monitor  I 
get  out  of  the  construction  of  it.  It  is  all-suf- 
ficient." Our  grateful  nation  took  him  at  his 
word.  But  honors  of  another  and  less  costly 
kind  were  showered  upon  him.  Chief  Engineer 
Stimers,  who  was  on  the  Monitor  during  her 
battle  with  the  Merrimac,  wrote  to  Ericsson: 
"  I  congratulate  you  on  your  great  success. 
Thousands  have  this  day  blessed  you.  I  have 
heard  whole  crews  cheer  you.  Every  man  feels 
that  you  have  saved  this  place  to  the  nation  by 
furnishing  us  with  the  means  to  whip  an  iron- 
clad frigate  that  was,  until  our  arrival,  having 
it  all  her  own  way  with  our  most  powerful 
vessels." 

War  vessels  upon  the  plan  of  the  Monitor 
speedily  appeared  among  the  navies  of  several 
nations.  England  refused  at  first  to  admit  the 
value  of  the  invention  and  was  not  converted  un- 
til the  double-turreted  Miantonomoh  visited  her 
waters  in  1866,  when  one  of  the  London  papers 


202 


INVENTORS 


described  her  appearance  among  the  British  fleet 
as  that  of  a  wolf  among  a  flock  of  sheep.  The 
day  of  the  big  wooden  war-vessels  was  over.  It 
was,  nevertheless,  an  Englishman  and  a  naval  of- 


ficer, Captain  Cowper  Coles,  who  sought  to  de- 
prive Ericsson  of  the  honor  of  his  invention. 
Coles  declared  that  he  had  devised  a  ship  during 
the  Crimean  war,  in  which  a  turret  or  cupola 
was   to  protect  the  guns.     Ericsson's  letter   to 


JOHN  EB1GS80N  203 

Napoleon  III.,  written  in  1854,  is  sufficient  answer 
to  this,  besides  which  Ericsson's  scheme  includes 
more  than  a  stationary  shield  for  the  guns,  which 
is  all  that  Coles  claimed.  Coles  succeeded,  how- 
ever, in  inducing  the  British  Admiralty  to  build 
a  vessel  according  to  his  plans.  This  ill-fated 
craft  upset  off  Cape  Finisterre  on  the  night  of 
September  6,  1870,  and  went  to  the  bottom  with 
Coles  and  a  crew  of  nearly  five  hundred  men. 

Having  devised  an  apparatus  that  made 
wooden  war-vessels  useless,  Ericsson  turned  his 
attention  to  the  destruction  of  iron-clads,  and  de- 
voted ten  years  of  his  life  to  the  construction  of 
his  famous  torpedo-boat,  the  Destroyer,  upon 
which  he  spent  about  all  the  money  he  amassed 
by  other  work.  According  to  his  belief,  no  ves- 
sel afloat  could  escape  annihilation  in  a  battle 
with  his  Destroyer.  This  vessel  is  designed  to 
run  at  sufficient  speed  to  overtake  any  of  the 
iron-clads.  It  offers  small  surface  to  the  shot  of 
an  enemy,  and  besides  being  heavily  armored,  it 
can  be  partly  submerged  beneath  the  waves. 
When  within  fighting  distance  it  fires  under 
water,  by  compressed  air,  a  projectile  containing 
dynamite  sufficient  to  raise  a  big  war-ship  out  of 
the  water.  The  explosion  takes  place  when  the 
projectile  meets  with  resistance,  such  as  the  sides 
of  a  ship.  To  Ericsson's  great  disappointment, 
the  United  States  Government  persistently  re- 
fused to  purchase  the  Destroyer  or  to  commis- 
sion Ericsson  to  build  more  vessels  of  her  type. 

Of  Ericsson's  home  life  there  is  not  much  to 
be  told.    He  was  utterly  wrapped  up  in  his  work. 


204 


INVENTORS 


With  his  devoted  secretary,  Mr.  Arthur  Taylor, 
his  days  knew  scarcel}^  any  variation.  Of  social 
recreation  he  had  none.     In  conversation  he  was 


ERICSSONS  dwinrflSBfc 


DICIATOB 
,    n         nR 


^^S 


CUILID 


SCALEIftET 

Development  of  the   Monitor  Idea. 

abrupt  and  somewhat  peculiar,  apparently  re- 
garding all  other  talk  than  that  relating  to  me- 
chanics and  germane  subjects  as  a  waste  of 
words.     His  shrewd  face,  with  its  blue  eyes  and 


JOHN  ERIGS80N  205 

fringe  of  white  hair,  was  not  an  unkindly  one, 
however,  and  the  few  workmen  he  employed  in 
the  Beach  Street  house  were  devoted  to  him. 
No  great  man  was  ever  more  intensely  averse  to 
personal  notoriety.  Although  often  advised  to 
make  his  Destroyer  better  known  by  means  of 
newspaper  articles,  he  persistently  refused  to  see 
newspaper  men  ;  and  the  professional  interviewer 
and  lion-hunter  were  his  pet  aversions.  It  was 
perhaps  to  avoid  them  that  he  left  his  house  only 
after  nightfall,  and  then  but  for  a  walk  in  the 
neighborhood. 

His  time  was  divided  according  to  rule.  For 
thirty  years  he  was  called  by  his  servant  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  took  a  bath  of  very 
cold  water,  ice  being  added  to  it  in  summer. 
After  some  gymnastic  exercises  came  breakfast 
at  nine  o'clock,  always  of  eggs,  tea,  and  brown 
bread.  His  second  and  last  meal  of  the  day, 
dinner,  never  varied  from  chops  or  steak,  some 
vegetables,  and  tea  and  brown  bread  again.  Ice- 
water  was  the  only  luxury  that  he  indulged  in. 
He  used  tobacco  in  no  form.  During  the  day- 
time he  was  accustomed  to  work  at  his  desk  or 
drawing-table  for  about  ten  hours.  After  dinner 
he  resumed  work  until  ten,  when  he  started  out 
for  the  stroll  of  an  hour  or  more,  which  always 
ended  his  day.  The  last  desk  work  accomplished 
every  day  was  to  make  a  record  in  his  diary,  al- 
ways exactly  one  page  long.  This  diary  is  in 
Swedish  and  comprises  more  than  fourteen  thou- 
sand pages,  thus  covering  a  period  of  forty  years, 
during  which  he  omitted  but  twenty  days,  in  1856, 


206 


INVENTORS 


when  he  had  a  finger  crushed  by  machinery.  He 
scarcely  knew  what  sickness  was,  and  just  be- 
fore his  death  said  that  he  had  not  missed  a  meal 
for  fifteen  years.  He  was  a  widower  and  left  no 
children.  He  died  in  the  Beach  Street  house, 
after  a  short  illness,  on  March  8,  1889,  and  his 
remains  were  transferred  to  Sweden  with  naval 
honors. 


The  Room  in  which  Ericsson  Worked  for  More  than  Twenty  Years. 


Cyrus  Hall   McCnrmick. 


VIII. 

CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK. 

In  the  course  of  an  argument  before  the  Com- 
missioner of  Patents,  in  1859,  ^^^  ^^^^  Reverdy 
Johnson  declared  that  the  McCormick  reaper 
was  worth  $55,000,000  a  year  to  this  country, 
an  estimate  that  was  not  disputed.  At  about 
the  same  time  the  late  William  H.  Seward 
said  that  ''  owing  to  Mr.  McCormick's  invention 
the  line  of  civilization  moves  westward  thirty 
miles  each  year."  Already  the  London  Times, 
after  ridiculing  the  McCormick  reaper  exhibited 
at  the  London  World's  Fair  of  1851,  as  *'a  cross 
between  an  Astley  (circus)  chariot,  a  wheel- 
barrow, and  a  flying-machine,"  confessed,  when 
the  reaper  had  been  tested  in  the  fields,  that  it 
was  ''  worth  to  the  farmers  of  England  the  whole 
cost  of  this  exhibition,"  Writing  of  this  glorious 
success,  Mr.  Seward  said :  ''  So  the  reaper  of 
183 1,  as  improved  in  1845,  achieved  for  its  in- 
ventor a  triumph  which  all  then  felt  and  ac- 
knowledged was  not  more  a  personal  one  than 
it  was  a  national  one.  It  was  justly  so  regarded. 
No  general  or  consul,  drawn  in  a  chariot  through 
the  streets  of  Rome  by  order  of  the  Senate,  ever 
conferred  upon  mankind  benefits  so  great  as  he 
who  thus  vindicated  the  genius  of  our  country 


20S  INVENTORS 

at  the  World's  Exhibition  of  Art  in  the  metrop- 
olis of  the  British  empire  in  185 1."  In  1861, 
though  declining  to  extend  the  patent  for  the 
reaper,  the  Commissioner  of  Patents,  D.  P.  Hol- 
loway,  paid  the  inventor  this  remarkable  tribute  : 
*'  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  is  an  inventor  whose 
fame,  while  he  is  yet  living,  has  spread  through 
the  world.  His  genius  has  done  honor  to  his 
own  country,  and  has  been  the  admiration  of 
foreign  nations,  and  he  will  live  in  the  grateful 
recollection  of  mankind  as  long  as  the  reaping- 
machine  is  employed  in  gathering  the  harvest." 
Nevertheless  the  extension  of  the  patent  of  1834, 
which  act  of  justice  would  have  given  the  invent- 
or an  opportunity  to  obtain  an  adequate  reward 
for  his  work,  was  refused  upon  the  extraordinary 
ground  that  "  the  reaper  was  of  too  great  value 
to  the  public  to  be  controlled  by  any  individual." 
In  other  words,  the  benefit  conferred  by  McCor- 
mick upon  the  country  was  too  great  to  be  paid 
for ;  therefore  no  effort  should  be  made  to  pay 
for  it.  Finally,  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences, 
when  McCormick  was  elected  to  the  Institute 
of  France — an  honor  paid  but  to  few  Americans 
— mentioned  the  election  as  due  to  ''  his  having 
done  more  for  the  cause  of  agriculture  than  any 
other  living  man." 

It  is  thus  evident  that  the  tremendous  service 
done  to  the  civilized  world  by  the  invention  of  the 
McCormick  reaper  was  appreciated  years  ago. 
Yet  it  is  improbable  that  the  whole  value  of  the 
invention  was  fully  realized.  To-day  the  Mc- 
Cormick works  at  Chicago  turn  out  yearly,  and 


GYRUS  HALL  McGORMIGK 


209 


have  turned  out  for  several  years,  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand  reapers  and  mowers.  At  a 
moderate  estimate  every  McCormick  reaper,  and 
every  reaper  founded  upon  it  and  containing 
its  essential  features,  saves  the  labor  of  six  men 
during  the  ten  harvest  days  of  the  year.     The 


*.X  - 

-^ 

^ 

^A^..g^-:^ 

..o^t?^/;- 


Farm  where  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  was  Born  and  Raised. 


present  number  of  reapers  in  operation  to-day, 
all  of  them  based  upon  the  McCormick  pat- 
ents, is  estimated  at  about  two  million,  so  that, 
counting  a  man's  labor  at  $i  a  day,  here  is  a 
yearly  saving  of  more  than  $100,000,000.  The 
reaper  thus  stands  beside  the  steam-engine  and 
the  sewing-machine  as  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant labor-saving  inventions  of  our  time,  relieving 
14 


210  INVENTORS 

millions  of  men  from  the  most  arduous  drudg- 
ery and  increasing  the  world's  wealth  by  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars  every  year.  It  is 
some  satisfaction  to  know  that  the  inventor  of 
the  reaper  lived  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  work. 
A  remarkable  man  in  every  respect,  his  in- 
genuity, perseverance,  courage  under  injustice, 
and  generosity  finally  won  him  not  only  the 
material  rewards  that  were  his  by  right,  but  the 
esteem  and  honor  of  the  civilized  world. 

Like  Fulton  and  Morse,  Cyrus  Hall  McCor- 
mick  came  of  Scotch-Irish  blood,  a  race  marked 
by  fixed  purpose,  untiring  industry  in  carrying 
out  that  purpose,  a  strong  sense  of  moral  obliga- 
tion, and  an  unswerving  determination  to  do 
right  by  the  light  of  conscience  though  the  heav- 
ens fall.  He  was  born  on  the  15th  of  February, 
1 809,  at  Walnut  Grove,  in  Rockbridge  County, 
Va.,  and  was  the  eldest  of  eight  children,  six  of 
whom  lived  to  grow  up.  His  father,  Robert 
McCormick,  in  addition  to  farming,  had  work- 
shops of  •  considerable  importance  on  his  farm, 
as  well  as  a  saw-mill  and  grist-mill  and  smelting 
furnaces.  In  these  workshops  young  Cyrus 
McCormick  probably  got  his  first  love  for  me- 
chanical devices.  Robert  McCormick  was  an 
inventor  of  no  mean  attainment.  He  devised 
and  built  a  thresher,  a  hemp-breaker,  some  mill 
improvements,  and  in  1816  he  made  and  tried 
a  mechanical  reaper.  In  those  days  so  much  of 
the  farmer's  hard  labor  was  expended  in  swing- 
ing the  scythe  that  it  seems  strange  we  have 
no  record  of  more  attempts  to  make  a  machine 


CYRUS  HALL  McGORMIOK  211 

do  the  work.  A  schoolmaster  named  Ogle  is 
said  to  have  built  a  reaper  in  1822,  but,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  admission,  it  would  not  work. 
Bell,  a  Scotch  minister,  also  contrived  a  reaping- 
machine  that  was  tried  in  1828.  In  the  course 
of  the  subsequent  patent  litigation  over  the 
reaper  the  claims  of  these  early  inventors  were 
made  the  most  of  by  McCormick's  opponents, 
but  the  courts  of  last  resort  invariably  settled 
the  question  in  McCormick's  favor. 

As  a  farmer  boy,  young  Cyrus  McCormick 
began  his  day's  work  in  the  fields  at  five  o'clock. 
In  winter  he  went  to  the  Old  Field  School. 
During  his  boyhood  he  would  watch  his  fa- 
ther's experiments  and  disappointments.  His 
first  attempt  in  the  same  direction  was  the  con- 
struction, at  the  age  of  fifteen,  of  a  harvesting- 
cradle  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  keep  up  with 
an  able-bodied  workman.  His  first  patented  in- 
vention (183 1)  was  a  plough  which  threw  alternate 
furrows  on  either  side,  being  thus  either  a  right- 
hand  or  left-hand  plough.  This  was  superseded 
in  1833  by  an  improved  plough,  also  by  McCor- 
mick, called  the  self-sharpening  plough,  which 
did  excellent  work.  His  father  having  worked 
long  and  unsuccessfully  at  a  mechanical  reaper, 
it  was  natural  that  young  McCormick's  mind 
should  turn  over  the  same  problem  from  time  to 
time,  and  his  father's  failures  did  not  deter  him, 
although  Robert  McCormick  had  suffered  so 
much  in  mind  and  pocket  through  the  impractica- 
bility of  his  reaper  that  he  warned  his  son  against 
wasting  more  time  and  money  upon  the  dream. 


212 


INVENTORS 


One  martyr  to  mechanical  progress  was  enough 
for  the  McCormick  family.  But  the  possibility 
of  making  a  machine  do  the  hard,  hot  work  of 
the  harvest-field  had  a  fascination  for  the  young 
man,  and  the  more  he  studied  the  discarded 
reaping-machine  made  by  his  father  in  1816,  the 
more  firmly  he  became  convinced  that  while  the 


^^ 


-jTs^t:^ 


Exterior  of  the  Blacksmith  Shop  where  the  First  Reaper  was  Built. 

principle  of  that  device  was  wrong,  the  work 
could  be  done.  In  those  days  the  development 
of  the  country  really  depended  upon  some  bet- 
ter, cheaper  way  of  harvesting.  The  land  was 
fertile,  and  there  was  practically  no  end  of  it. 
But  labor  was  scarce. 

Cyrus  McCormick's  plough  was  a  success  that 
encouraged  him  to  take  hold  of  the  more  diffi- 
cult problem  of  the  reaper.    He  found  that  some 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMIGK  213 

device,  such  as  his  father's,  would  cut  grain  after 
a  fashion,  provided  it  was  in  perfect  condition 
and  stood  up  straight ;  the  moment  it  became 
matted  and  tangled  and  beaten  down  by  wind 
and  rain  the  machine  was  useless.  Other  de- 
vices had  been  arranged  whereby  a  fly-wheel 
armed  with  sickles  slashed  off  the  heads  of  the 
wheat,  leaving  the  stalks ;  but  here  again  such  a 
machine  would  work  only  when  the  field  was  in 
prime  condition.  He  determined  that  no  device 
was  of  any  value  which  would  not  cut  grain  as 
it  might  happen  to  stand,  stalk  and  all.  After 
months  of  labor  in  his  father's  shop,  making 
every  part  of  the  machine  himself,  in  both  wood 
and  iron,  as  he  said,  he  turned  out,  in  1831,  the 
first  reaper  that  really  cut  an  average  field  of 
wheat  satisfactorily.  Its  three  great  essential 
features  were  those  of  the  reaper  of  to-day — a 
vibrating  cutting-blade,  a  reel  to  bring  the  grain 
within  reach  of  the  blade,  a  platform  to  receive 
the  falling  grain,  and  a  divider  to  separate  the 
grain  to  be  cut  from  that  to  be  left  standing. 
This  machine,  drawn  by  horses,  was  tested  in  a 
field  of  six  acres  of  oats,  belonging  to  John  Steele, 
within  a  mile  of  Walnut  Grove.  Its  work  aston- 
ished the  neighboring  farmers  who  gathered  to 
witness  the  test.  The  problem  of  cutting  stand- 
ing grain  by  machinery  had  been  solved. 

There  were,  however,  certain  defects  in  the 
reaper  which  caused  Cyrus  McCormick  not  to 
put  the  machine  on  the  market.  All  the  cog- 
wheels were  of  wood.  There  was  no  place  upon 
it  for  either  the  driver  or  the  raker.     The  for- 


214  INVENTORS 

mer  rode  on  the  near  horse  and  the  latter  fol- 
lowed on  foot,  raking  the  grain  from  it  as  best 
he  could.  But  it  cut  grain  fast,  and  both  father 
and  son  were  so  impressed  by  its  possibilities  as 
foreshadowed  in  even  this  crude  affair,  that  for 
the  next  few  years  they  devoted  their  time, 
money,  and  thoughts  to  it.  Robert  McCormick 
was  as  enthusiastic  as  his  son,  and  he  is  rightly 
entitled  to  a  share  of  the  honor,  for  his  invention 
of  1816  turned  the  attention  of  his  son  to  the 
problem  and  pointed  out  the  radical  errors  to  be 
avoided.  A  year  after  its  first  trial,  with  certain 
improvements,  the  reaper  cut  fifty  acres  of  wheat 
in  so  perfect  and  rapid  a  manner  as  to  insure  its 
practical  value  beyond  all  doubt.  The  self-re- 
straint shown  by  McCormick  in  refusing  to  sell 
machines  until  he  was  satisfied  with  them  shows 
the  man.  The  patent  was  granted  in  1834,  but 
for  six  years  he  kept  at  work  experimenting, 
changing,  improving,  during  the  short  periods 
of  each  harvest.  In  a  letter  to  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Patents,  on  file  in  the  Patent  Office, 
Mr.  McCormick  said  :  ''  From  the  experiment  of 
1 83 1  until  the  harvest  of  1840  I  did  not  sell  a 
reaper,  although  during  that  time  I  had  many 
exhibitions  of  it,  for  experience  proved  to  me 
that  it  was  best  for  the  public  as  well  as  for  my- 
self that  no  sales  were  made,  as  defects  presented 
themselves  that  would  render  the  reaper  unprof- 
itable in  other  hands.  Many  improvements  were 
found  necessary,  requiring  a  great  deal  of  thought 
and  study.  I  was  sometimes  flattered,  at  other 
times  discouraged,  and  at  all  times  deemed  it  best 


CTBU8  HALL  McGORMIGK 


215 


not  to  attempt  the  sale  of  machines  until  satisfied 
that  the  reaper  would  succeed.'* 

About  1835  the  McCormicks  engaged  in  a  part- 
nership for  the  smelting  of  iron  ore.  The  reaper, 
as  a  business  pursuit,  was  yet  in  the  distance,  and 
the  new  iron  industry  offered  large  profits.  The 
panic  of  1837  swept  away  these  hopes.     Cyrus 


Interior  of  the  Blacksmith  Shop  where  the  First  Reaper  was  Built. 

sacrificed  all  he  had,  even  the  farm  given  him  by 
his  father,  to  settle  his  debts,  and  his  scrupulous 
integrity  in  this  matter  turned  disaster  into  bless- 
ing, for  it  compelled  him  to  take  up  the  reaper  with 
renewed  energy.  With  the  aid  of  his  father  and 
of  his  brothers,  William  and  Leander,  he  began 
the  manufacture  of  the  machine  in  the  primitive 
workshop  at  Walnut  Grove,  turning  out  less  than 
fifty  machines  a  year,  all  of  them  made  under 


216  INVENTORS 

great  disadvantages.  The  sickles  Avere  made 
forty  miles  away,  and  as  there  were  no  railroads 
in  those  days,  the  blades,  six  feet  long,  had  to  be 
carried  on  horseback.  Neither  was  it  easy,  when 
once  the  machines  were  made,  to  get  them  to 
market.  The  first  consignment  sent  to  the  West- 
ern prairies,  in  1844,  was  taken  in  wagons  from 
Walnut  Grove  to  Scottsville,  then  down  the 
canal  to  Richmond,  Va. ;  thence  by  water  to 
New  Orleans,  and  then  up  the  Mississippi  and 
Ohio  Rivers  to  Cincinnati. 

The  great  West,  with  its  vast  prairies,  was  the 
natural  market  for  the  reaper.  Upon  the  small 
farms  of  the  East  hand  labor  might  still  suffice 
for  the  harvest;  in  the  West,  where  the  farms 
were  enormous  and  labor  scarce,  it  was  out  of 
the  question.  Realizing  that  while  his  reaper 
was  a  luxury  in  Virginia,  it  was  a  necessity  in 
Ohio  and  Illinois,  Cyrus  McCormick  went  to 
Cincinnati  in  the  autumn  of  1844  and  began 
manufacturing.  At  the  same  time  he  made 
some  valuable  improvements  and  obtained  a 
second  patent.  The  reaper  had  become  known 
and  the  inventor  rode  on  horseback  through 
Illinois  and  Wisconsin,  obtaining  farmers'  orders 
for  reapers,  which  he  offered  to  A.  C.  Brown, 
of  Cincinnati,  as  security  for  payment,  if  he 
would  use  his  workshops  for  manufacturing 
them.  McCormick  was  enabled  also  to  arrange 
with  a  firm  in  Brockport,  N.  Y.,  to  make  his 
reapers  on  a  royalty,  and  this  business  pro- 
vided the  great  wheat  district  of  Central  New 
York  with  machines.     In  1847  ^^^   1848  he  ob- 


GYM  us  HALL  McCOBMICK 


217 


tained  still  other  patents  for  new  features  of  the 
reaper. 

In  1846  he  had  already  fixed  upon  Chicago  as 
the  best  centre  of  operations  for  the  reaper  busi- 
ness, and  at  the  close  of  the  year  he  moved  there. 
The  next  year  the  sale  of  the  reapers  rose  to 
seven  hundred,  and  more  than  doubled  in  1849. 


The   First  Reaper. 

Having  associated  his  two  brothers,  William  S. 
and  Leander  J.,  with  him,  Cyrus  McCormick 
found  time  to  devote  himself  to  introducing  the 
reaper  in  the  Old  World.  The  American  exhibit 
at  the  London  World's  Fair  of  185 1  was  rather  a 
small  one,  redeemed  largely  by  the  McCormick 
reaper,  which  the  London  Times,  as  I  have  already 
said,  praised  as  worth  to  the  farmers  of  Great 
Britain  more  than  the  whole  cost  of  the  exhibi- 


218  INVENTORS 

tion.     To  it  was  awarded  the  grand  prize,  known 
as  the  council  medal. 

The  reaper's  advance  in  public  favor  was  as 
steady  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  as  here,  and 
medals  and  honors  were  awarded  McCormick  at 
many  important  exhibitions.  During  the  Paris 
Exposition  of  1867  McCormick  superintended 
the  work  of  his  reapers  at  a  field  trial  held  by  the 
exposition  authorities,  and  so  conclusively  de- 
feated all  competitors  that  Napoleon  III.,  who 
walked  after  the  r.eapers,  expressed  his  deter- 
mination to  confer  upon  the  inventor,  then  and 
there,  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  At 
the  French  Exposition  of  1878  the  McCormick 
wire-binder  won  the  grand  prize.  From  1850 
the  success  of  the  reaper  was  assured.  Mr.  Mc- 
Cormick might  have  rested  content  with  what 
had  been  achieved,  but  it  was  not  his  nature. 
He  not  only  continued  to  bear  upon  his  shoul- 
ders the  larger  share  of  responsibility  of  the  rap- 
idly growing  business,  but  he  labored  persistent- 
ly to  add  to  the  effectiveness  of  his  invention. 

The  great  fire  that  swept  Chicago  in  1871  left 
nothing  of  the  already  important  works  estab- 
lished by  Mr.  McCormick.  But,  as  might  be 
expected  from  such  a  man,  he  was  a  tower  of 
strength  to  the  city  in  her  time  of  distress,  and 
one  of  those  to  rally  first  from  the  blow  and  to 
inspire  hope.  Within  a  year,  assisted  by  his 
brother  Leander,  he  had  raised  from  the  ashes  an 
immense  establishment,  which  with  the  growth 
of  the  last  few  years  now  covers  forty  acres  of 
ground.      More   than   2,000   men  are   here   em- 


GYRUS  HALL  McGORMIGK  219 

ployed.  The  statistics  for  last  year  show  that 
more  than  20,000  tons  of  special  bar-iron  and  steel, 
2,800  tons  of  sheet  steel,  and  26,000  tons  of  cast- 
ings were  used  in  making  the  142,000  machines 
sold.  Ten  million  feet  of  lumber  were  used, 
chiefly  in  boxing  and  crating,  as  very  little  wood 
is  now  used  in  the  reaper. 

This  is  a  marvellous  development  from  the 
little  Virginia  shop  of  1840,  with  its  output  of 
one  machine  a  week,  and  the  growth  means  far 
more  for  the  country  at  large  than  might  be 
inferred  from  these  figures ;  the  farmers  of  the 
world  owe  more  to  the  McCormick  reaper  than 
they  can  repay.  The  whir  of  the  American 
reaper  is  heard  around  the  world.  In  Egypt, 
Russia,  India,  Australia  the  machine  is  help- 
ing man  with  more  than  a  giant's  strength.  Re- 
cent American  travellers  through  Persia  have 
described  the  singular  effect  produced  upon 
them  by  seeing  the  McCormick  reaper  doing 
its  steady  work  in  the  fields  over  which  Ha- 
roun  Al  Raschid  may  have  roamed.  And  this 
wonderful  machine  is  followed  with  awe  by  the 
more  ignorant  of  the  natives,  who  look  upon  its 
achievements  as  little  short  of  magical.  They 
are  not  far  wrong,  however,  for  it  is  more  amaz- 
ing than  any  wonder  described  in  their  "Arabian 
Nights." 

The  last  years  of  Cyrus  H.  McCormick's  life 
were  such  as  have  fallen  to  few  of  the  world's 
benefactors,  for  as  a  rule  the  pioneer  who  shows 
the  road  has  a  hard  time  of  it,  even  unto  the 
end.     Mr.   McCormick   had   the   satisfaction  of 


220  INVENTORS 

knowing  not  only  that  by  his  invention  he  had 
conferred  a  blessing  upon  the  workmen  of  the 
world,  but  that  the  world  had  acknowledged  the 
debt.  Material  prosperity,  however,  was  not 
considered  any  reason  for  luxurious  idleness. 
To  the  close  of  his  life  Mr.  McCormick  con- 
tinued to  supervise  the  business  of  his  firm  and 
to  make  the  reaper  more  perfect.  No  great  ex- 
hibition abroad  or  in  this  country  passed  without 
some  of  its  honors  falling  to  the  share  of  the 
McCormick  reaper. 

The  private  life  of  Cyrus  H.  McCormick  was 
a  happy  one,  and  to  this  may  be  attributed  no 
small  share  of  the  elasticity  and  courage  that 
recognized  no  defeat  as  final.  Congress  failed 
to  do  him  justice ;  his  business  was  attacked  by 
hordes  of  rivals ;  it  was  interrupted  by  the  fire  of 
1 87 1  and  afterward  threatened  by  labor  strikes 
incited  by  self-seeking  demagogues.  Hard  work 
was  the  rule  of  his  life  and  not  the  exception. 
But  that  his  nature  remained  sweet  and  just  is 
shown  by  his  untiring  work  upon  behalf  of  oth- 
ers. His  home  life,  as  I  have  just  remarked, 
was  unusually  blessed.  In  1858  he  married  Miss 
Nettie  Fowler,  a  daughter  of  Melzar  Fowler,  of 
Jefferson  County,  New  York.  Of  the  seven  chil- 
dren born  of  this  marriage,  five  lived  to  grow  up, 
his  son,  Cyrus  H.  McCormick,  now  occupying 
his  father's  place  at  the  head  of  the  great  works 
in  Chicago.  One  of  the  daughters,  Anita,  is  the 
widow  of  Emmons  Blaine.  The  inventor  of  the 
reaping-machine  died  on  the  13th  of  May,  1884. 
Robert  H.  Parkinson,  of   Cincinnati,  speaks  as 


CYRUS  HALL  McGORMIGK  221 

follows  of  one  of  the  last  interviews  he  had  with 
Mr.  McCormick :  "  Though  struggling  with  the 
infirmities  of  age,  he  took  on  a  kind  of  majesty 
which  belongs  alone  to  that  combination  of  great 
mental  and  moral  strength,  and  he  surprised  me 
by  the  power  with  which  he  grappled  the  matters 
under  discussion,  and  the  strong  personality  be- 
fore which  obstacles  went  down  as  swiftly  and  in- 
evitably as  grain  before  the  knife  of  his  machine. 
I  think  myself  fortunate  in  having  had  this 
glimpse  of  him  and  in  being  able  to  remember 
with  so  much  personal  association  a  life  so  com- 
plete in  its  achievements,  so  far-reaching  in  its 
impress,  alike  upon  the  material,  moral,  and  re- 
ligious progress  of  the  country,  and  so  thor- 
oughly successful  and  beneficial  in  every  depart- 
ment of  activity  and  influence  which  it  entered." 
One  of  his  friends,  speaking  of  Mr.  McCormick, 
said :  ''  That  which  gave  intensity  to  his  purpose, 
strength  to  his  will,  and  nerved  him  with  perse- 
verance that  never  failed  was  his  supreme  regard 
for  justice,  his  worshipful  reverence  for  the  true 
and  right.  The  thoroughness  of  his  conviction 
that  justice  must  be  done,  that  right  must  be 
maintained,  made  him  insensible  to  reproach 
and  impatient  of  delay.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
his  character  was  strong,  nor  that  his  purpose 
was  invincible,  nor  that  his  plans  were  crowned 
with  an  ultimate  and  signal  success,  for  where 
conviction  of  right  is  the  motive-power  and  the 
attainment  of  justice  the  end  in  view,  with  faith 
in  God  there  is  no  such  word  as  fail." 

Cyrus    H.    McCormick  was   not   only  the   in- 


222  INVENTORS 

ventor  of  a  great  labor-saving  device,  but  he 
helped  his  fellow-man  in  other  ways.  Philan- 
thropy, religion,  education,  journalism,  and  poli- 
tics received  a  share  of  his  attention.  More 
than  thirty  years  ago  he  was  already  an  active 
power  for  good  in  the  councils  of  his  church.  In 
1859  he  proposed  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  to  endow  with  $100,000 
the  professorships  of  a  theological  seminary,  to 
be  established  in  Chicago.  This  was  done,  and 
during  his  lifetime  he  gave  about  half  a  mill- 
ion dollars  to  this  institution — the  Theological 
Seminary  of  the  Northwest.  The  McCormick 
professorship  of  natural  philosophy  in  the 
Washington  and  Lee  University  of  Virginia,  and 
gifts  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  at 
Hampden-Sidney,  and  to  the  college  at  Has- 
tings, Neb.,  also  attest  his  solicitude  for  the 
church  in  which  he  had  been  reared  and  of 
which  he  had  been  a  member  since  1834.  In 
1872  he  came  to  the  aid  of  the  struggling  organ 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  Northwest,  the 
Interior,  and  used  it  to  foster  union  between  the 
Old  and  the  New  Schools  in  the  church,  to  aid 
in  harmonizing  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
North  and  South,  to  advance  the  interests  of  the 
Theological  Seminary,  and  to  promote  the  wel- 
fare of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  North- 
west, Under  his  care  and  advice  the  Interior 
grew  to  be  a  mighty  voice,  expressing  the  con- 
victions, the  aspirations,  and  hopes  of  a  great 
church. 


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Thorrias   A.  Edison. 


IX. 

THOMAS  A.  EDISON. 

Thomas  A.  Edison  is  sometimes  spoken  of 
rather  as  a  master  mechanic  than  as  a  master  in- 
ventor or  discoverer,  and  with  regard  to  some  of 
his  work — I  might  even  say  most  of  it — this 
characterization  holds  true.  Edison's  fame  is 
chiefly  associated  in  the  popular  mind  with  the 
electric  light.  Yet  it  is  perfectly  well  known  to 
every  student  of  the  matter,  that  in  all  that  he 
has  done  toward  making  the  electric  light  a  use- 
ful every-day — or  perhaps  I  should  say  every- 
night — affair,  he  has  simply  made  practicable 
what  other  men  had  invented  or  discovered  be- 
fore him.  The  fundamental  discovery  upon 
which  the  incandescent  electric  lamp  is  founded 
— that  a  wire  of  metal  or  other  substance  if 
heated  to  incandescence  in  a  glass  bulb  from 
which  the  air  has  been  exhausted  will  give  light 
for  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  according  to  the 
character  of  the  apparatus  and  the  degree  to 
which  a  perfect  vacuum  has  been  effected  in 
the  bulb — this  dates  from  the  first  half  of  the 
century.  As  early  as  1849  Despretz,  the  French 
scientist,  described  a  series  of  experiments  with 
sticks  of  carbon  sealed  in  a  glass  globe  from 
which  air  had  been  exhausted.     When  a  power- 


224 


INVENTORS 


Edison's  Paper  Carbon 
Lamp. 


ful  current  was  passed  through  the  carbon 
filament  it  became  luminous  and  remained  so  for 
a  short  time.  This  was,  perhaps,  the  first  of  a 
long  line  of  similar  experiments 
in  which  a  number  of  American 
physicists  —  Farmer,  Draper, 
Henry,  Morse,  and  Maxim 
among  them  —  took  part.  But 
notwithstanding  the  labors  of  a 
score  of  experts  in  Europe  and 
this  country,  the  incandescent 
electric  light — the  wire  in  a  glass 
bulb  exhausted  of  its  air  —  re- 
mained a  laboratory  curiosity 
up  to  the  time,  fifteen  years  ago, 
when  Edison  took  hold  of  it.  It 
gave  light  only  for  a  short  time 
and  was  too  expensive  a  toy  for  practical  use. 
The  carbon  burned  out  or  disintegrated,  and 
the  lamp  failed.  Edison  took  hold  of  the  mechan- 
ical difficulties  of  the  problem.  With  a  patience, 
an  ingenuity,  a  fertility  of  device  in  which  he 
stands  alone,  he  got  to  the  bottom  of  each  radical 
defect  and  remedied  it.  The  lamp  would  not 
burn  long  because  the  platinum  wire  used  gave 
out,  partly  because  platinum  was  not  fitted  for  the 
work,  fusing  at  too  low  a  temperature.  Edison 
substituted  carbonized  strips  of  paper.  These 
in  turn  failed,  and  he  found  a  species  of  bamboo 
that  answered.  The  lamp  would  not  burn  be- 
cause air  still  remained  in  the  little  bulbs  not- 
withstanding the  most  careful  manipulation  with 
Sprengel  pumps  to  exhaust  the  air.     Edison  in- 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  225 

vented  new  pumps  and  devices  by  which  the 
air,  down  to  one  millionth  part,  was  excluded. 
The  lamp  cost  too  much  to  operate,  because  large 
copper  wires  were  needed  to  carry  the  current, 
and  the  generators  used  up  steam  power  too 
fast.  Edison  devised  new  forms  of  conductors 
and  generators.  All  such  work  called  more  for 
mechanical  ingenuity  than  for  actual  invention. 
No  new  principles  were  involved — merely  the 
better  adaptation  of  known  methods.  Given  a 
perfect  carbon,  a  globe  perfectly  free  from  air, 
cheap  electric  current,  and  cheap  means  of  carry- 
ing it  from  the  generating  machine  to  the  lamps, 
and  the  problem  was  solved. 

Edison,  as  a  master  mechanic,  furnished  all 
this,  or  at  least  so  nearly  solved  the  problem  as 
to  entitle  him  to  claim  credit  for  having  given 
the  electric  light  to  the  world — a  better  illumi- 
nant  than  gas  in  every  way,  and  destined  some 
day  to  be  infinitely  cheaper. 

With  regard  to  Edison's  work  upon  the  tele- 
graph, telephone,  electric  railway,  dynamo,  the 
ore-extracting  machines,  the  electric  pen,  and  a 
score  of  other  inventions  which  have  made  him 
the  most  profitable  customer  of  the  United  States 
Patent  Office  in  this  or  any  other  generation,  the 
labor  of  this  remarkable  genius  has  also  been 
largely  that  of  one  who  made  practical  and  use- 
ful the  dreams  of  others.  And  I  am  by  no 
means  sure  that  the  man  who  does  this  is  not  en- 
titled to  more  credit  than  he  who  simply  suggests 
that  such  and  such  a  wonder  might  be  accom- 
plished and  stops  there.     It  is  certain  that  before 


226  INVENT0B8 

r 

Edison  we  had  no  electric  lights;  now  we  have 
them  in  every  important  building  in  the  country, 
and  ere  long  shall  have  them  everywhere. 

Edison  dislikes  intensely  the  term  discoverer 
as  applied  to  himself.  "  Discovery  is  not  inven- 
tion," he  once  remarked  in  the  course  of  an  in- 
teresting talk  with  Mr.  George  Parsons  Lathrop, 
printed  in  Harper  s  Magazine.  "  A  discovery  is 
more  or  less  in  the  nature  of  an  accident.  A  man 
Avalks  along  the  road  intending  to  catch  the 
train.  On  the  way  his  foot  kicks  against  some- 
thing, and  looking  down  to  see  what  he  has  hit,, 
he  sees  a  gold  bracelet  embedded  in  the  dust. 
He  has  discovered  that,  certainly  not  invented 
it.  He  did  not  set  out  to  find  a  bracelet,  yet  the 
value  of  it  is  just  as  great  to  him  at  the  moment 
as  if,  after  long  years  of  study,  he  had  invented 
a  machine  for  making  a  gold  bracelet  out  of 
common  road  metal.  Goodyear  discovered  the 
way  to  make  hard  rubber.  He  was  at  work  ex- 
perimenting with  india-rubber,  and  quite  by 
chance  he  hit  upon  a  process  which  hardened  it 
— the  last  result  in  the  world  that  he  wished  or 
expected  to  attain.  In  a  discovery  there  must 
be  an  element  of  the  accidental,  and  an  impor- 
tant one,  too  ;  while  an  invention  is  purely  de- 
ductive. In  my  own  case  but  few,  and  those  the 
least  important,  of  my  inventions  owed  anything 
to  accident.  Most  of  them  have  been  hammered 
out  after  long  and  patient  labor,  and  are  the  re- 
sult of  countless  experiments  all  directed  toward 
attaining  some  well-defined  object.  All  mechan- 
ical  improvements   may  safely  be  said   to  be  in- 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON 


227 


ventions  and  not  discoveries.  The  sewing-ma- 
chine was  an  invention.  So  were  the  steam- 
engine  and  the  typewriter.  Speaking  of  this 
latter,  did  I  ever  tell  you  that  I  made  the  first 
twelve  typewriters  at  my  old  factory  in  Railroad 
Avenue,  Newark  ?  This  was  in  1869  or  1870,  and 
I  myself  had  worked  at  a  machine  of  similar 


Edison  Listening  to  his  Plionograph. 


character,  but   never  found   time  to  develop  it 
fully." 

There  is  one  great  invention,  however,  for 
which  Edison  deserves  credit,  both  as  discoverer 
and  practical  inventor — the  phonograph.  Here 
was  a  genuine  discovery.  The  phonograph 
knows  no  other  parent  than  Edison,  and  he  has 
brought  it  to  its  present  condition  by  devotion 
and  tireless  skill.  I  have  always  believed  in  the 
phonograph  as  an  instrument  destined  to  play 


228  INVENTORS 

some  day  an  important  part  among  the  blessings 
that  ingenuity  has  given  to  man.  There  are  still 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  its  practical  success,  but 
that  the  missing  screw  or  spring — perhaps  no 
more  than  that — will  be  found  in  the  near  future, 
is  not  doubted  by  any  competent  observer. 

Thomas  Alva  Edison  was  born  February  ii, 
1847,  ^t  Milan,  Erie  County,  O.,  an  obscure  canal 
village.  When  a  small  boy,  his  family,  a  most 
humble  one  (his  father  being  a  village  jack-of- 
all-trades,  living  upon  odd  jobs  done  for  neigh- 
boring farmers),  moved  to  Port  Huron,  Mich., 
where  Edison's  boyhood  was  passed.  There  his 
father  was  in  turn  tailor,  well-digger,  nursery- 
man, dealer  in  grain,  lumber,  and  farm  lands. 
His  parents  were  of  Dutch-Scotch  descent  and 
gave  him  the  iron  constitution  that  enables  him 
to-day,  at  the  age  of  forty-seven,  to  tire  out  the 
most  robust  of  his  assistants.  One  of  his  ances- 
tors lived  to  the  age  of  one  hundred  and  two, 
and  another  to  the  age  of  one  hundred  and  three, 
so  that  we  may  reasonably  expect  the  famous  in- 
ventor to  open  the  door  for  us  to  still  other  won- 
ders of  which  we  do  not  yet  even  dream.  His 
mother,  born  in  Massachusetts,  had  a  good  edu- 
cation and  at  one  time  taught  school  in  Canada. 
Of  regular  schooling,  young  Edison  had  but  two 
months  in  his  life.  Whatever  else  he  knew  as 
a  boy  he  learned  from  his  mother.  There  are 
no  records  showing  extraordinary  promise  on 
his  part.  He  was  an  omniverous  reader,  having 
an  intense  curiosity  about  the  world  and  its 
great  men.     At  ten  years  of  age  he  Avas  reading 


THOMAS  A.  EBISON  2i^9 

Hume's  "  England,"  Gibbon's  "  Rome,"  the  Pen- 
ny Encyclopaedia,  and  some  books  on  chemistry. 

At  the  age  of  twelve  he  entered  upon  his  life 
work  as  newsboy  on  the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad 
of  Canada  and  the  Michigan  Central,  selling  pa- 
pers, books,*  candies,  etc.,  to  the  passengers, 

''  Were  you  one  of  the  train-boys,"  he  was  once 
asked,  *'  who  sold  figs  in  boxes  with  bottoms  half 
an  inch  thick?  " 

"  If  I  recollect  aright,"  he  replied,  with  a  merry 
twinkle,  "  the  bottoms  of  my  boxes  were  a  good 
inch." 

Perhaps  the  twelve-year-old  boy  learned  some- 
thing from  the  books  and  papers  he  sold.  At 
all  events  he  says  that  the  love  of  chemistry, 
even  at  that  age,  led  him  to  make  the  corner  of 
the  baggage-car  where  he  stored  his  wares  a 
small  laboratory,  fitted  up  with  such  retorts  and 
bottles  as  he  could  pick  up  in  the  railroad  work- 
shops. He  had  a  copy  of  Fresenius's  ''  Qualita- 
tive Analysis,"  into  which  he  plunged  Avith  the 
ardor  a  small  boy  usually  shows  for  nothing  liter- 
ary unless  it  has  a  yellow  cover  decorated  with 
an  Indian's  head.  He  seems  also  to  have  had  a 
habit  of  "  hanging  around  "  all  interesting  places, 
from  a  machine-shop  to  a  printing-office,  keep- 
ing his  eyes  very  v*/-ide  open.  In  one  such  expe- 
dition he  received  as  a  gift  from  W.  F.  Storey, 
of  the  Detroit  Free  Press,  three  hundred  pounds 
of  old  type  thrown  out  as  useless.  With  an  old 
hand-press  he  began  printing  a  paper  of  his  own, 
the  Grand  Trunk  Herald,  of  which  he  sold  sever- 
al hundred  copies  a  week,  the  employees  of  the 


230 


INVENTORS 


road  being  his  best  customers.  ''  My  news,"  he 
says,  talking  of  this  time,  "  was  purely  local.  But 
I  was  proud  of  my  newspaper  and  looked  upon 


CHANGE   UO'IMB  ,^. 

Going  vvin. 
Express,  leaves  PoroHuroi\.7.05  PW 

Mixed  For.  Detroit,  leaveirtKuron  atjyO^k 

>'..  _    .  ^    GOING  llAST,"'  "^    '     '.-r- 

Express  le-sveiTOetroit,  FolToronto,  at  6  15  A,M 

Mixed,    For  Pt    Huron  Jip£ve;>  at.    4.00  P.M 

Two'Freight  Train-Acrt  vay. 

}        j  I C,  R,  Christie,  Supt. 

1        J        . ^\ ''r^^- 

\,,  STAGES. 

kewbaltimo;|e  ^tation^ 

A  tri-weeWy5tage  lc?v^il|ii||«;*ovejianiedJtai: 
;^^revefyll5^fo"rNiwD4rnore  Algonac.  5w*n 
CreeR.  an<i  Newport.        & 

f»  Gvaves  propjelor^ 

MAIL   ^X&R3S. 
DiHy  Exprees  leaves  <|liW  Baltimore  Station 
every  morning  on  a)TJvg.ikr  the  Train  from  Det- 
roit,    For  JJaltinwre.  AJgo||c  Swan  CreeJj.  and 
Newport.  ^^„^-  U  \'r  4  Bennett.  ^^^ 

\        Pt,  HURON    ^TlOJf. 
An  Omnibusjeaves  the  j^atlon  for  PI, 
on  the  errival  of  all  Trai 

F"»>r%<Hcei-!'s.    Oley  Ag( 


LOST    LOSTj  LOST, 


New  Balti 
Butter  .rt  10  to  15  c!s  pei-  lb  C"]! 

Egii-s    :\l  liJ  cts,  per  doz, 
Lafd  at  7  lo  'Jcents  per  \;> 
Drcised  Hos/c,  at  3.00  to  3.t'5  peiC  1C(1  CXS. 
FlccTr-.1t  450  to    475  pf  tabl. 
BuckwUcM  ^t  L50   Ver  100  ll)S       '^ 
Molt«n-nl'4no  5  Cis  per  lb, 
Beans-at  1.00  to  1.20  otr  bush    tf  ,  ^i 
Potaic    ^-^"'^  >-■''- "-•'-■"-" 
Cora  ; 


Ciiickeiis  al  10  to  l2cts(\'lVi 
Geese  at  25  (i^  35  c.ertt'  e«cli 
f)iicUs'  e»t  30  cents,  per  pair. 


>ta)oes  a.1  60  X^a  <!.v;;fr  Mch    /«    ^^  ^„_— 
ir.-.ixt30  |p35  fis.  pei-bush.    .    "y*  _.._ 
irkeys-  ft  50  10  65 .els    cacK  |     »  ,  \ 

■-'•--' -vl  10  to  I2cts(x'-lh.       ,  ]■  ) 

j(o35  c.ertt'eftcli        ^"^"^  >, 

30  cents,  per  pair.       '« r  / 

^^;^ILUOAt)    EXCHANGE.,.  '| 

»    ''■^        At  Baltimore  Station.  | 

The^pHoVt  n.onif^il  HoIpI  is  now  rpfn  infWzi^- 

*'iih^Hhc6l'6TLi(|uors  and  everv^^yrt^iovi^Wi.J 

be  123  ™tg.Jh£.£piiifort  of  lhe'Gues)l's~^\       -'^^ 

S.   DaviS  Prop»p!or^ 


SPLENDID     .PORTABLE      COPYING 

PRBSSK,?    FOR  SALE    AT  \ 

IIX,  CLEMENS   OHDKRS  TAKEN,      \] 

BY  THE  NEWS  AGENT   ON  THE  MIXED".! 


Kidgaway  Reffeshniciit  Kooms-.!  wn(jl(||  ii»»orm' 
[ilH  >n>y  friends  that  I  have  opened  »  retreshnienl 
'™*  room  for  the  accoiuadalion  of  the  traveling  public 

R,  Allen,  propictor.  JT 


TO  THE  KAILROAD  MEN      . 
RaSIiond  Meft  i.cnd  i.i  youfordcis  for  Bulter, 
}  Zfi^is   iivrft    CNfe^e     Turkeys  C'bicittns,  and 
A  smsll  parcel  of  C'nlHjE}^  n:.  lost  on  the  cars  j  Cccsc         W,  C.  HuktSj  New  Baltimore  St>tion,y 
The  Finder  wilt  be  lib;',  l!y  rewarded.       **'     i  ' 


From    Edison's   Newspaper,   the    "  Grand   Trunk   Herald." 

myself  as  a  full-fledged  newspaper  man.  My 
items  used  to  run  about  like  this  :  '  John  Rob- 
inson, baggage-master  at  James's  Creek  Station, 
fell  off  the  platform  yesterday  and  hurt  his  leg. 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  231 

The  boys  are  sorry  for  John.'  Or,  '  No.  3  Bur- 
lington engine  has  gone  into  the  shed  for  re- 
pairs.' " 

This  was  Edison's  only  dip  into  a  literary  occu- 
pation. He  has  no  predilection  in  that  way.  He 
realizes  the  value  of  newspapers  and  books,  but 
chiefly  as  tools,  and  his  splendid  library  at  the 
Orange  laboratory,  kept  with  scrupulous  system, 
is  filled  with  scientific  books  and  periodicals 
only.  Telegraphy  was  to  be  the  field  in  which 
he  was  to  win  his  first  laurels.  Some  years  ago 
he  told  the  story  as  follows  : 

'^  At  the  beginning  of  the  civil  war  I  was  slav- 
ing late  and  early  at  selling  papers ;  but,  to  tell 
the  truth,  I  was  not  making  a  fortune.  I  worked 
on  so  small  a  margin  that  I  had  to  be  mighty 
careful  not  to  overload  myself  with  papers  that 
1  could  not  sell.  On  the  other  hand,  I  could  not 
afford  to  carry  so  few  that  I  should  find  myself 
sold  out  long  before  the  end  of  the  trip.  To  en- 
able myself  to  hit  the  happy  mean,  I  formed  a 
plan  which  turned  out  admirably.  I  made  a 
friend  of  one  of  the  compositors  of  the  Free 
Press  office,  and  persuaded  him  to  show  me  every 
day  a  *  galley-proof  '  of  the  most  important  news 
article.  From  a  study  of  its  head-lines  I  soon 
learned  to  gauge  the  value  of  the  day's  news  and 
its  selling  capacity,  so  that  I  could  form  a  toler- 
ably correct  estimate  of  the  number  of  papers  I 
should  need.  As  a  rule  I  could  dispose  of  about 
two  hundred ;  but  if  there  was  any  special  news 
from  the  seat  of  war,  the  sale  ran  up  to  three 
hundred  or  over.     Well,  one  day  my  compositor 


232  INVENTOliS 

brought  me  a  proof-slip  of  which  nearly  the 
whole  was  taken  up  with  a  gigantic  display  head. 
It  was  the  first  report  of  the  battle  of  Pittsburgh 
Landing— afterward  called  Shiloh,  you  know — 
and  it  gave  the  number  of  killed  and  wounded 
as  sixty  thousand  men. 

"  I  grasped  the  situation  at  once.  Here  was  a 
chance  for  enormous  sales,  if  only  the  people 
along  the  line  could  know  what  had  happened ! 
If  only  they  could  see  the  proof-slip  I  was  then 
reading !  Suddenly  an  idea  occurred  to  me.  I 
rushed  off  to  the  telegraph-operator  and  gravely 
made  a  proposition  to  him  which  he  received  just 
as  gravely.  He  on  his  part  was  to  wire  to  each 
of  the  principal  stations  on  our  route,  asking  the 
station-master  to  chalk  up  on  the  bulletin-board — 
used  for  announcing  the  time  of  arrival  and  de- 
parture of  trains — the  news  of  the  great  battle, 
with  its  accompanying  slaughter.  This  he  Avas 
to  do  at  once,  while  I,  in  return,  agreed  to  sup- 
ply him  with  current  literature  '  free,  gratis,  for 
nothing  '  during  the  next  six  months  from  that 
date. 

''  This  bargain  struck,  I  began  to  bethink  me 
how  I  was  to  get  enough  papers  to  make  the 
grand  coup  I  intended.  I  had  very  little  cash 
and,  I  feared,  still  less  credit.  I  went  to  the  su- 
perintendent of  the  delivery  department,  and 
preferred  a  modest  request  for  one  thousand 
copies  of  the  Free  Press  on  trust.  I  was  not 
much  surprised  when  my  request  was  curtly  and 
gruffly  refused.  In  those  days,  though,  I  was  a 
pretty  cheeky  boy  and  I  felt  desperate,  for  I  saw 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  233 

a  small  fortune  in  prospect  if  my  telegraph  oper- 
ator had  kept  his  word — a  point  on  which  I  was 
still  a  trifle  doubtful.  Nerving  myself  for  a  great 
stroke,  I  marched  upstairs  into  the  office  of  Wil- 
bur F.  Storey  himself  and  asked  to  see  him.  A 
few  minutes  later  I  was  shown  in  to  him.  I  told 
who  I  was,  and  that  I  wanted  fifteen  hundred 
copies  of  the  paper  on  credit.  The  tall,  thin, 
dark-eyed,  ascetic-looking  man  stared  at  me  for 
a  moment  and  then  scratched  a  few  words  on  a 
slip  of  paper.  '  Take  that  downstairs,'  said  he, 
*■  and  you  will  get  what  you  want.'  And  so  I 
did.  Then  I  felt  happier  than  I  have  ever  felt 
since. 

"  I  took  my  fifteen  hundred  papers,  got  three 
boys  to  help  me  fold  them,  and  mounted  the 
train  all  agog  to  find  out  whether  the  telegraph 
operator  had  kept  his  word.  At  the  town  where 
our  first  stop  was  made  I  usually  sold  two  pa- 
pers. As  the  train  swung  into  that  station  I 
looked  ahead  and  thought  there  must  be  a  riot 
going  on.  A  big  crowd  filled  the  platform  and 
as  the  train  drew  up  I  began  to  realize  that  they 
wanted  my  papers.  Before  we  left  I  had  sold  a 
hundred  or  two  at  five  cents  apiece.  At  the 
next  station  the  place  was  fairly  black  with 
people.  I  raised  the  *  ante  '  and  sold  three  hun- 
dred papers  at  ten  cents  each.  So  it  went  on 
until  Port  Huron  was  reached.  Then  I  trans- 
ferred my  remaining  stock  to  the  wagon  which 
always  waited  for  me  there,  hired  a  small  boy  to 
sit  on  the  pile  of  papers  in  the  back,  so  as  to  dis- 
count any  pilfering,  and  sold  out  every  paper  I 


234  IJVVEJYTOES 

had  at  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  or  more  per  copy. 
I  remember  I  passed  a  church  full  of  worship- 
pers, and  stopped  to  yell  out  my  news.  In  ten 
seconds  there  was  not  a  soul  left  in  meeting. 
All  of  them,  including  the  parson,  were  clus- 
tered around  me,  bidding  against  each  other  for 
copies  of  the  precious  paper. 

*'  You  can  understand  why  it  struck  me  then 
that  the  telegraph  must  be  about  the  best  thing 
going,  for  it  was  the  telegraphic  notices  on  the 
bulletin-boards  that  had  done  the  trick.  I  deter- 
mined at  once  to  become  a  telegraph-operator. 
But  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Wilbur  F.  Storey  I 
should  never  have  fully  appreciated  the  wonders 
of  electrical  science." 

Telegraphy  became  a  hobby  with  the  boy. 
From  every  operator  along  the  road  he  picked 
up  something.  He  strung  the  basement  of  his 
father's  house  at  Port  Huron  with  wires,  and 
constructed  a  short  line,  using  for  the  batteries 
stove-pipe  wire,  old  bottles,  nails,  and  zinc  which 
urchins  of  the  neighborhood  were  induced  to 
cut  out  from  under  the  stoves  of  their  unsuspect- 
ing mothers  and  bring  to  young  Edison  at  three 
cents  a  pound.  In  order  to  save  time  for  his 
experiments,  he  had  the  habit  of  leaping  from  a 
train  while  it  was  going  at  the  rate  of  twenty- 
five  miles  an  hour,  landing  upon  a  pile  of  sand 
arranged  by  him  for  that  purpose.  An  act  of 
personal  courage — the  saving  of  the  station- 
master's  child  at  Port  Clements  from  an  advanc- 
ing train — was  a  turning-point  in  his  career,  for 
the  grateful  father  taught  him  telegraphing  in 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  i^35 

the  regular  way.  Telegraphy  was  then  in  its  in- 
fancy, comparatively  speaking;  operators  were 
few,  and  good  wages  could  be  earned  by  means 
of  much  less  proficiency  than  is  now  required. 
Still,  Edison  had  so  little  leisure  at  his  disposal 
for  learning  the  new  trade,  that  it  took  him  sev- 
eral years  to  become  an  expert  operator.  Most 
of  his  studies  were  carried  on  in  the  corner  of 
the  baggage-car  that  served  him  as  printing- 
office,  laboratory,  and  business  headquarters. 
With  so  many  irons  in  the  fire,  mishaps  were 
sure  to  occur.  Once  he  received  a  drubbing  on 
account  of  an  article  reflecting  unpleasantly 
upon  some  employee  of  the  road.  One  day 
during  his  absence  a  bottle  of  phosphorus  upset 
and  set  the  old  railroad  caboose  on  fire,  where- 
upon the  conductor  threw  out  all  the  painfully 
acquired  apparatus  and  thrashed  its  owner. 

Edison's  first  regular  employment  as  telegraph- 
operator  was  at  Indianapolis  when  he  was 
eighteen  years  old.  He  received  a  small  salary 
for  day-work  in  the  railroad  office  there,  and 
at  night  he  used  to  receive  newspaper  reports 
for  practice.  The  regular  operator  was  a  man 
given  to  copious  libations,  who  was  glad  enough 
to  sleep  off  their  effects  while  Edison  and  a  young 
friend  of  his  named  Parmley  did  his  work.  "  I 
would  sit  down,"  says  Edison,  "for  ten  minutes, 
and  'take'  as  much  as  I  could  from  the  instru- 
ment, carrying  the  rest  in  my  head.  Then  while 
I  wrote  out,  Parmley  would  serve  his  turn  at 
*  taking,'  and  so  on.  This  worked  well  until  they 
put  a  new  man  on  at  the  Cincinnati  end.     He 


236  INVE]S^T01{S 

was  one  of  the  quickest  clespatchers  in  the  busi- 
ness, and  we  soon  found  it  was  hopeless  for  us  tc 
try  to  keep  up  with  him.  Then  it  was  that  I 
worked  out  my  first  invention,  and  necessity  was 
certainly  the  mother  of  it. 

"  I  got  two  old  Morse  registers  and  arranged 
them  in  such  a  way  that  by  running  a  strip  of 
paper  through  them  the  dots  and  dashes  were 
recorded  on  it  by  the  first  instrument  as  fast  as 
they  were  delivered  from  the  Cincinnati  end, 
and  were  transmitted  to  us  through  the  other  in- 
strument at  any  desired  rate  of  speed.  They 
would  come  in  on  one  instrument  at  the  rate  of 
forty  words  a  minute,  and  would  be  ground  out 
of  our  instrument  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five. 
Then  weren't  we  proud !  Our  copy  used  to  be 
so  clean  and  beautiful  that  we  hung  it  up  on  ex- 
hibition; and  our  manager  used  to  come  and 
gaze  at  it  silently  with  a  puzzled  expression. 
He  could  not  understand  it,  neither  could  any  of 
the  other  operators ;  for  we  used  to  hide  my  im- 
promptu automatic  recorder  when  our  toil  was 
over.  But  the  crash  came  when  there  was  a  big 
night's  work — a  Presidential  vote,  I  think  it  was 
— and  copy  kept  pouring  in  at  the  top  rate  of 
speed  until  we  fell  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours  behind.  The  newspapers  sent  in  frantic 
complaints,  an  investigation  was  made,  and  our 
little  scheme  was  discovered.  We  couldn't  use 
it  any  more. 

"  It  was  that  same  rude  automatic  recorder  that 
indirectly  led  me  long  afterward  to  invent  the 
phonograph.     I'll  tell  you  how  this  came  about. 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON 


237 


After  thinking  over  the  matter  a  great  deal,  I 
came  to  the  point  where,  in  1877,  I  had  worked 
out  satisfactorily  an  instrument  that  would  not 
only  record  telegrams  by  indenting  a  strip  of 
paper  with  dots  and  dashes  of  the  Morse  code, 
but  would  also  repeat  a  message  any  number  of 
times  at  any  rate  of  speed  required.  I  was  then 
experimenting  with  the  telephone  also,  and  my 
mind  was   filled   with  theories   of    sound   vibra- 


Edison's  Tmfoil   Phonograph— the   First  Practical  Machine. 


tions  and  their  transmission  by  diaphragms. 
Naturally  enough,  the  idea  occurred  to  me :  if 
the  indentations  on  paper  could  be  made  to 
give  forth  again  the  click  of  the  instrument,  why 
could  not  the  vibrations  of  a  diaphragm  be 
recorded  and  similarly  reproduced  ?  I  rigged 
up  an  instrument  hastily  and  pulled  a  strip  of 
paper  through  it,  at  the  same  time  shouting, 
'  Hallo ' !  Then  the  paper  was  pulled  through 
again,  my  friend  Batchelor  and  I  listening  breath- 
lessly. We  heard  a  distinct  sound,  which  a 
strong  imagination  might  have    translated  into 


238  INVENTORS 

the  original  '  Hallo/  That  was  enough  to  lead 
me  to  a  further  experiment.  But  Batchelor  was 
sceptical,  and  bet  me  a  barrel  of  apples  that  I 
couldn't  make  the  thing  go.  I  made  a  drawing 
of  a  model  and  took  it  to  Mr.  Kruesi,  at  that 
time  engaged  on  piece-work  for  me,  but  now  as- 
sistant general  manager  of  our  machine-shop  at 
Schenectady.  I  told  him  it  was  a  talking-ma- 
chine. He  grinned,  thinking  it  a  joke  ;  but  he 
set  to  work  and  soon  had  the  model  ready.  I 
arranged  some  tinfoil  on  it,  and  spoke  into  the 
machine.  Kruesi  looked  on,  still  grinning.  But 
when  I  arranged  the  machine  for  transmission 
and  we  both  heard  a  distinct  sound  from  it,  he 
nearly  fell  down  in  his  fright.  I  was  a  little 
scared  myself,  I  must  admit.  I  won  that  barrel 
of  apples  from  Batchelor,  though,  and  was 
mighty  glad  to  get  it." 

To  go  back  to  earlier  days,  the  story  of  Edi- 
son's first  years  as  a  full-fledged  operator  shows 
that  from  the  beginning  he  was  more  of  an  in- 
ventor than  an  operator.  He  was  full  of  ideas, 
some  of  which  were  gratefully  received.  One 
day  an  ice-jam  broke  the  cable  between  Port 
Huron,  in  Michigan,  and  Sarnia,  on  the  Canada 
side,  and  stopped  communication.  The  river  is 
a  mile  and  a  half  wide  and  was  impassable. 
Young  Edison  jumped  upon  a  locomotive  and 
seized  the  valve  controlling  the  whistle.  He  had 
the  idea  that  the  scream  of  the  whistle  might  be 
broken  into  long  and  short  notes,  corresponding 
to  the  dots  and  dashes  of  the  telegraphic  code. 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  239 

''  Hallo  there,  Sarnia !  Do  you  get  me  ?  Do 
you  hear  what  I  say?"  tooted  the  locomotive. 

No  answer. 

''Do  you  hear  what  I  say,  Sarnia?  " 

A  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  time  the  message 
went  across  without  response,  but  finally  the 
idea  was  caught  on  the  other  side ;  answering 
toots  came  cheerfully  back  and  the  connection 
was  recovered. 

Anything  connected  with  the  difficulties  of 
telegraphy  had  a  fascination  for  him.  He  lost 
many  a  place  because  of  unpardonable  blunders 
due  to  his  passion  for  improvement.  At  Strat- 
ford, Canada,  being  required  to  report  the  word 
"  Six  "  every  half  hour  to  the  manager  to  show 
that  he  was  awake  and  on  duty,  he  rigged  up  a 
wheel  to  do  it  for  him.  At  Indianapolis  he  kept 
press  reports  waiting  while  he  experimented  with 
new  devices  for  receiving  them.  At  Louisville, 
in  procuring  some  sulphuric  acid  at  night  for  his 
experiments,  he  tipped  over  a  carboy  of  it,  ruining 
the  handsome  outfit  of  a  banking  establishment  be- 
low. At  Cincinnati  he  abandoned  the  office  on 
every  pretext  to  hasten  to  the  Mechanics'  Libra- 
ry to  pass  his  day  in  reading. 

An  indication  of  his  thirst  for  knowledge,  and 
of  a  naive  ignoring  of  enormous  difficulties,  is 
found  in  a  project  formed  by  him  at  this  time  to 
read  through  the  whole  public  library.  There 
was  no  one  to  tell  him  that  a  summary  of  human 
knowledge  may  be  found  in  a  moderate  number 
of  volumes,  nor  to  point  out  to  him  what  they 
are.     Each  book  was  to  him  a  part  of  the  great 


240  INVENTORS 

domain  of  knowledge,  none  of  which  he  meant 
to  lose.  He  began  with  the  solid  treatises  of  a 
dusty  lower  shelf  and  actually  read,  in  the  ac- 
complishment of  his  heroic  purpose,  fifteen  feet 
along  that  shelf.  He  omitted  no  book  and  noth- 
ing in  the  book.  The  list  contained  Newton's 
''  Principia,"  Ure's  Scientific  Dictionary,  and 
Burton's  "  Anatomy  of  Melancholy." 

At  that  time  a  message  sent  from  New  Orleans 
to  New  York  had  to  be  taken  at  Memphis,  re- 
telegraphed  to  Louisville,  taken  down  again  by 
the  operator  there,  and  telegraphed  to  another 
centre,  and  so  on  till  it  reached  New  York. 
Time  was  lost  and  the  chance  of  error  was  in- 
creased. Edison  was  the  first  to  connect  New 
Orleans  and  New  York  directly.  It  was  just 
after  the  war.  He  perfected  an  automatic  re- 
peater which  was  put  on  at  Memphis  and  did 
its  work  perfectly.  The  manager  of  the  office 
there,  one  Johnson,  had  a  relative  who  was  also 
busy  on  the  same  problem,  but  Edison  solved  it 
ahead  of  him  and  received  complimentary  no- 
tices from  the  local  papers.  He  was  discharged 
without  cause.  He  got  a  pass  as  far  as  Decatur 
on  his  way  home,  but  had  to  walk  from  there  to 
Nashville,  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  From 
there  he  got  a  pass  to  Louisville,  where  he  ar- 
rived during  a  sharp  snow-storm,  clad  in  a  linen 
duster. 

It  was  soon  after  this  that  Edison,  already 
a  swift  and  competent  operator  when  he  de- 
voted himself  to  practical  work,  received  prom- 
ise  of   employment  in  the    Boston  office.     The 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  241 

weather  was  quite  cold  and  his  peculiar  dress, 
topped  with  a  slouchy  broad-brimmed  hat,  made 
something-  of  a  sensation.  But  Edison  then  cared 
as  little  for  dress  as  he  does  to-day.  So  one  raw 
wet  day  a  tall  man  with  a  limp,  wet  duster  cling- 
ing to  his  legs,  stalked  into  the  superintendent's 
room,  and  said  : 

''  Here  I  am." 

The  superintendent  eyed  him  from  head  to 
foot,  and  said  : 

"  Who  are  you  ?  '* 

''  Tom  Edison." 

"  And  who  on  earth  might  Tom  Edison  be?" 

The  young  man  explained  that  he  had  been 
ordered  to  report  for  duty  at  the  Boston  office, 
and  was  finally  told  to  sit  down  in  the  operating- 
room,  where  his  advent  created  much  merriment. 
The  operators  guyed  him  loudly  enough  for  him 
to  hear.  He  didn't  care.  A  few  moments  later 
a  New  York  sender  noted  for  his  swiftness  called 
up  the  Boston  office.  There  was  no  one  at  lib- 
erty. 

''  Well,"  said  the  office  chief, ''  let  that  new  fel- 
low try  him."  Edison  sat  down,  and  for  four 
hours  and  a  half  wrote  out  messages  in  his  pecul- 
iarly clear  round  hand,  stuck  a  date  and  number 
on  them  and  threw  them  on  the  floor  for  the 
office  boy  to  pick  up.  The  time  he  took  in 
numbering  and  dating  the  sheets  were  the  only 
seconds  he  was  not  writing  out  transmitted 
words.  Faster  and  faster  ticked  the  instrument, 
and  faster  and  faster  went  Edison's  fingers,  until 
the  rapidity  with  which  the  messages  came  tum- 

16 


212  INVENTORS 

bling  on  the  floor  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
other  operators,  who,  when  their  work  was  done, 
gathered  around  to  witness  the  spectacle.  At 
the  close  of  the  four  and  a  half  hours'  work 
there  flashed  from  New  York  the  salutation : 

'^  Hello!" 

''  Hello  yourself,"  ticked  back  Edison. 

''  Who  the  devil  are  you  ? "  rattled  into  the 
Boston  oflice. 

''  Tom  Edison." 

"  You  are  the  first  man  in  the  country,"  ticked 
the  instrument,  "that  could  ever  take  me  at 
my  fastest,  and  the  only  one  who  could  ever 
sit  at  the  other  end  of  my  wire  for  more  than 
two  hours  and  a  half.  I'm  proud  to  know 
you." 

Edison  was  once  asked  with  what  invention  he 
really  began  his  career  as  an  inventor. 

''  Well,"  said  he,  in  reply,  "  my  first  appearance 
at  the  Patent  Office  was  in  1868,  when  I  was 
twenty-one,  with  an  ingenious  contrivance  which 
I  called  the  electrical  vote  recorder.  I  had  been 
impressed  with  the  enormous  waste  of  time  in 
Congress  and  in  the  State  Legislatures  by  the 
taking  of  votes  on  any  motion.  More  than  half 
an  hour  was  sometimes  required  to  count  the 
*  Ayes '  and  *  Noes.'  So  I  devised  a  machine 
somewhat  on  the  plan  of  the  hotel  annunciator 
that  was  invented  long  afterward,  only  mine 
was  a  great  deal  more  complex.  In  front  of 
each  member's  desk  were  to  have  been  two  but- 
tons, one  for  '  Aye,'  the  other  for  *  No,'  and  by 
the  side  of  the  Speaker's  desk  a  frame  with  two 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON 


243 


dials,  one  showing  the  total  of  '  Ayes  '  and  the 
other  the  total  of  '  Noes.'  When  the  vote  was 
called  for,  each  member  could  press  the  button 
he  wished  and  the  re- 
sult would  appear  auto- 
matically before  the 
Speaker,  who  could 
glance  at  the  dials  and 
announce  the  result. 
This  contrivance  would 
save  several  hours  of 
public  time  every  day 
in  the  session,  and  I 
thought  my  fortune 
was  made.  I  interested 
a  moneyed  man  in  the 
thing  and  we  went  to- 
gether to  Washington, 
where  we  soon  found 
the  right  man  to  get 
the    machine    adopted. 

I   set   forth   its    merits.      Imagine    my    feelings 
when,  in  a  horrified  tone,  he  exclaimed : 

'' '  Young  man,  that  won't  do  at  all.  That  is 
just  what  we  do  not  want.  Your  invention 
would  destroy  the  only  hope  the  minority  have 
of  influencing  legislation.  It  would  deliver 
them  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the  majority. 
The  present  system  gives  them  time,  a  weapon 
which  is  invaluable,  and  as  the  ruling  majority 
always  knows  that  they  may  some  day  become  a 
minority,  they  will  be  as  much  averse  to  any 
change  as  their  opponents.'     I  saw  the  force  of 


Vote  Recorder 


—Edison's  First  Patented 
Invention. 


244:  INVENTORS 

these  remarks,  and  the  vote  recorder  got  no 
further  than  the  Patent  Office." 

But  he  began  to  believe  in  himself.  His  next 
work  was  upon  the  applications  of  the  vibratory 
principle  in  telegraphing,  upon  which  so  many  of 
his  subsequent  inventions  were  founded.  His 
first  ambitious  attempt  was  in  the  direction  of  a 
multiplex  system  for  sending  several  messages 
over  one  wire  at  the  same  time.  It  was  not 
much  of  a  success,  however,  and  Edison  drifted 
to  New  York,  where,  after  a  vain  attempt  to  in- 
terest the  telegraph  companies  in  his  inventions, 
he  established  himself  as  an  electrical  expert 
ready  for  odd  jobs  and  making  a  specialty  of 
telegraphy.  One  day  the  Western  Union  Com- 
pany had  trouble  with  its  Albany  wire.  The  wire 
wasn't  broken,  but  wouldn't  work,  and  several 
days  of  experimenting  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
pany's electricians  only  served  to  puzzle  them 
the  more.  As  a  forlorn  hope  they  sent  for 
young  Edison. 

*'  How  long  will  you  give  me  ?  "  he  asked. 
^^  Six  hours?  " 

The  manager  laughed  and  told  him  he  would 
need  longer  than  that. 

Edison  sat  down  at  the  instrument,  established 
communication  with  Albany  by  way  of  Pitts- 
burgh, told  the  Albany  office  to  put  their  best 
man  at  the  instrument,  and  began  a  rapid  series 
of  tests  with  currents  of  all  intensities.  He 
directed  the  tests  from  both  ends,  and  after  two 
hours  and  a  half  told  the  company's  officers  that 
the  trouble  existed  at  a  certain  point  he  named 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  245 

on  the  line,  and  he  told  them  what  it  was.  They 
telegraphed  the  office  nearest  this  point  the 
necessary  directions,  and  an  hour  later  the  wire 
was  working  properly.  This  incident  first  es- 
tablished his  value  in  New  York  as  an  expert, 
and  the  business  became  profitable.  Moreover, 
it  led  the  different  telegraph  companies  to  give 
respectful  attention  to  what  he  had  to  offer  in 
the  way  of  patented  devices. 

Edison's  mechanical  skill  soon  became  so  noted 
that  he  was  made  superintendent  of  the  repair 
shop  of  one  of  the  smaller  telegraph  companies 
then  in  existence,  all  of  which  were  using  what 
was  known  as  the  Page  sounder,  a  device  for 
signalling,  the  sole  right  to  which  was  claimed 
by  the  Western  Union  Company.  Owing  to  the 
latter  company's  success  in  a  patent  suit  over 
this  sounder,  there  came  a  time  when  an  injunc- 
tion was  obtained,  silencing  all  sounders  of  that 
type,  and  practically  putting  a  serious  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  rapid  work.  Edison  was  called  into 
the  president's  office  and  the  situation  explained. 
For  a  long  time,  according  to  one  who  was  pres- 
ent, he  stood  chewing  vigorously  upon  a  mouth- 
ful of  tobacco,  looking  first  at  the  sounder  in  his 
hand,  and  then  falling  into  a  brown  study.  At 
length  he  picked  up  a  sheet  of  tin  used  as  a 
"  back"  for  manifolding  on  thin  sheets  of  paper, 
and  began  to  twist  and  cut  it  into  queer  shapes ; 
a  group  of  persons  gathered  around  and  watched. 
Not  a  word  was  spoken.  Finally  Edison  tore  off 
the  Page  sounder  on  the  instrument  before  him, 
and  substituting  his  bit  of  tin,  began  working. 


246  INVENTORS 

It  was  not  so  good  as  the  patented  arrangement 
discarded,  but  it  worked.  In  four  hours  a  hun- 
dred such  devices  were  in  use  over  the  line,  and 
wdiat  would  have  been  a  ruinous  interruption  to 
business  was  avoided. 

Edison's  first  large  sums  of  money  came  from 
the  sale  of  an  improvement  in  the  instruments 
used  to  record  stock  quotations  in  brokers'  of- 
fices, commonly  known  as  "  tickers."  His  suc- 
cess in  this  direction  led  him  to  take  a  contract 
to  manufacture  some  hundreds  of  ''  tickers,"  and 
his  only  venture  in  this  direction  was  carried  out 
with  considerable  success  at  a  shop  he  rented  in 
Newark  about  1875.  But  as  he  told  me  a  few 
years  later,  in  talking  about  this  incident  in  his 
career,  manufacturing  was  not  in  his  line.  Like 
Thoreau,  who  having  succeeded  in  making  a 
perfect  lead -pencil,  declared  he  should  never 
make  another,  he  hates  routine.  ''  I  was  a  poor 
manufacturer,"  said  he,  "  because  I  could  not  let 
well  enough  alone.  My  first  impulse  upon  tak- 
ing any  apparatus  into  my  hand,  from  an  egg- 
beater  to  an  electric-motor,  is  to  seek  a  way  of 
improving  it.  Therefore,  as  soon  as  I  have  fin- 
ished a  machine  I  am  anxious  to  take  it  apart 
again  in  order  to  make  an  experiment.  That  is 
a  costly  mania  for  a  manufacturer." 

It  was  his  success  with  a  device  for  printing 
stock  quotations  upon  paper  tape  that  finally  in- 
duced several  New  York  capitalists  to  accept 
Edison's  offer  to  experiment  with  the  incandes- 
cent electric  light,  they  to  pay  the  expense  of  the 
experiments  and  share  in  the  inventions  if  any 


r 


r--^-/if; 


Edison    in   his   Laboratory. 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  247 

were  made.  For  the  sake  of  quiet  Edison  moved 
out  to  Menlo  Park,  a  little  station  on  the  Penn- 
sylvania road  about  twenty-five  miles  beyond 
Newark,  and  built  a  shop  twenty-eight  feet  wide, 
one  hundred  feet  long,  and  two  stories  high.  It 
was  here  that  I  first  made  his  acquaintance,  in 
January,  1879,  soon  after  the  newspapers  had 
announced  that  he  had  solved  the  problem 
of  the  electric  light.  It  may  be  remembered 
that  gas  stock  tumbled  in  price  at  that  time,  and 
there  was  a  rush  to  sell  before  the  new  light 
should  displace  gas  altogether.  One  cold  day  I 
climbed  the  hill  from  the  station,  and  once  past 
the  reception-room,  in  which  every  new-comer 
was  carefully  scrutinized,  for  inventors  are  apt  to 
have  odds  and  ends  lying  about  that  they  do  not 
want  seen  by  everyone,  I  found  myself  in  a  long 
big  work-shop.  To  anyone  accustomed  to  the 
orderly  appearance  of  the  ideal  machine-shop, 
it  presented  a  curious  appearance,  for  evidently 
half  the  machines  in  it — forges,  lathes,  furnaces, 
retorts,  etc. — were  dismantled  for  the  moment 
and  useless.  Half  a  dozen  workmen  were  busy 
in  an  apparently  aimless  manner. 

Upstairs,  in  a  room  devoted  to  chemical  ex- 
periments, I  found  Edison  himself.  He  is  to-day 
just  what  he  was  then.  Prosperity  has  not 
changed  him  in  the  least,  except  perhaps  in  one 
particular.  In  those  days  of  struggle  the  inven- 
tor was  far  less  affable  with  visitors  than  he  is  to- 
day. One  felt  instinctively  that  he  was  a  man 
struggling  to  accomplish  some  serious  task  to 
which  he  was  devoting   every  waking  thought 


248  INVENTORS 

and  probably  dreaming  about  it  at  night.  As  I 
strode  across  the  laboratory  in  the  direction  in- 
dicated by  one  of  the  workmen  present,  a  com- 
pactly built  but  not  tall  man,  with  rather  a  boy- 
ish, clean  -  shaven  face,  prematurely  old,  was 
holding  a  vial  of  some  liquid  up  to  the  light. 
He  had  on  a  blouse  such  as  chemists  wear,  but 
it  was  hardly  necessary,  as  his  clothes  were  well 
stained  with  acids  ;  his  hands  were  covered  with 
some  oil  with  which  his  hair  was  liberally  streaked, 
as  he  had  a  habit  of  wiping  his  fingers  upon  his 
head.  ''  Good  clothes  are  wasted  upon  me,"  he 
once  explained  to  me.  "  I  feel  it  is  wrong  to 
wear  any,  and  I  never  put  on  a  new  suit  when 
I  can  help  it."  Edison  has  been  slightly  deaf 
for  a  number  of  years,  and  like  all  persons  of  de- 
fective hearing,  closely  watches  anyone  with 
whom  he  talks.  His  patience  with  visitors  is 
proverbial,  and  provided  any  intelligence  is 
shown,  he  will  plunge  into  long  explanations. 
As  he  goes  on  from  point  to  point,  warming  up 
to  his  subject,  he  is  sometimes  quite  oblivious  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  all  lost  upon  his  visitor  until 
brought  back  by  some  question  or  comment 
which  shows  that  he  might  as  well  talk  Sanscrit. 
Then  he  laughs  and  goes  back  to  simpler  mat- 
ters. 

I  watched  him  for  a  few  moments  before  pre- 
senting myself.  After  a  long  look  at  his  bottle, 
held  up  against  the  light,  he  put  it  down  again 
on  the  table  before  him,  and  resting  his  head  be- 
tween his  hands,  both  elbows  on  the  table,  he 
peered  down  at  the  bottle  as  if  he  expected  it  to 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  249 

say  something.  Then,  after  a  moment's  brown 
study,  he  would  seize  it  again,  give  it  a  shake,  as 
if  to  shake  its  secret  out,  and  hold  it  up  to  the 
light.  As  pantomime  nothing  could  have  been 
more  expressive.  That  liquid  contained  a  secret 
it  would  not  give  up,  but  if  it  could  be  made  to 
give  it  up,  Edison  was  the  man  to  do  it,  as  a  ter- 
rier might  worry  the  life  out  of  a  rat. 

The  secret  of  his  success  might  well  be  "  Per- 
sistency, more  persistency,  still  more  persist- 
ency." One  of  his  foremen  relates  that  once  in 
Newark  when  his  printing  telegraph  suddenly 
refused  to  work,  he  locked  himself  into  his  labor- 
atory, declaring  that  he  would  not  come  out  till 
the  trouble  was  found.  It  took  him  sixty  hours, 
during  which  time  his  only  food  consisted  of 
crackers  and  cheese  eaten  at  the  bench  ;  then  he 
went  to  bed  and  slept  twenty  hours  at  a  stretch. 
At  another  time,  during  the  height  of  the  first 
electric-light  excitement,  all  the  lamps  he  had 
burning  in  Menlo  Park,  about  eighty  in  all,  sud- 
denly went  out,  one  after  another,  without  appar- 
ent cause.  Everything  had  gone  well  for  nearly 
a  month  and  the  great  success  of  the  experiment 
had  been  published  to  the  world.  If  the  lamps, 
with  their  carbon  filaments  of  charred  paper 
would  burn  for  a  month  there  seemed  to  be  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  burn  for  a  year,  and 
Edison  was  stunned  by  the  catastrophe.  The 
trouble  was  evidently  in  the  lamps  themselves, 
for  new  lamps  burned  well.  Then  began  the 
most  exciting  and  most  exhaustive  series  of  ex- 
periments ever  undertaken  by  an  American  phys- 


250 


INVENTORS 


icist.  For  five  days  Edison  remained  day  and 
night  at  the  laboratory,  sleeping  only  when  his 
assistants  took  his  place  at  whatever  was  going 
on.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  experimenting 
with  the  incandescent  lamp  are  enormous  because 
the  light  only  burns  when  in  a  vacuum.  The 
instant  the  glass  is  broken,  out  it  goes.    Edison's 


Edison's  Menio  Park  Electric  Locomotive  (1880). 

eyes  grew  weak  studying  the  brilliant  glow  of 
the  carbon  filament.  At  the  end  of  the  five  days 
he  took  to  his  bed,  worn  out  with  excitement  and 
sick  with  disappointment.  During  the  last  two 
days  and  nights  he  ate  nothing.  He  could  not 
sleep,  for  the  moment  he  left  the  laboratory  and 
closed  his  eyes  some  new  test  suggested  itself. 
Neither  was  there  much  sleep  for   his  faithful 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  251 

force.  Ordinarily  one  of  the  most  considerate 
of  men,  he  seemed  quite  surprised  when  rest  and 
refreshments  were  sometimes  suggested  as  in 
order  after  fifteen  hours'  incessant  work.  The 
trouble  was  finally  discovered  to  be  one  that  time 
alone  could  have  proved.  The  air  was  not  suf- 
ficiently exhausted  from  the  lamps.  To  add  to 
the  discomfiture  of  the  inventor,  a  professor  of 
physics  in  one  of  the  well-known  colleges  de- 
clared in  a  newspaper  article  widely  circulated 
that  the  Edison  lamp  would  never  last  long 
enough  to  pay  for  itself. 

''  ril  make  a  statue  of  that  man,"  said  Edison 
to  me  one  day  when  he  was  still  groping  in  the 
dark  for  the  secret  of  his  temporary  defeat,  ''  and 
I'll  illuminate  it  brilliantly  with  Edison  lamps 
and  inscribe  it :  '  This  is  the  man  who  said  the 
Edison  lamp  would  not  burn.'  " 

To  go  back  to  Edison,  shaking  his  bottle  in 
the  sunlight,  his  brown  study  gave  way  to  a 
pleasant  smile  of  welcome  when  I  had  made  my 
business  known.  ''  Take  a  look  at  these  filings," 
he  said,  making  room  for  me  at  the  bench.  "  See 
how  curiously  they  settle  when  I  shake  the  bottle 
up.  In  alcohol  they  behave  one  way,  but  in  oil 
in  this  way.  Isn't  that  the  most  curious  thing 
you  ever  saw — better  than  a  play  at  one  of  your 
city  theatres,  eh  ? "  and  he  chuckled  to  himself 
as  he  shook  them  up  again. 

"  What  I  want  to  know,"  he  went  on,  more  to 
himself  than  to  me,  ''  is  what  they  mean  by  it, 
and  I'm  going  to  find  out."  To  me  the  interest- 
ing spectacle  was  Edison  tossing  up  his  bottle 


252  INVENTORS 

and  watching  the  filings  settle,  and  not  the  curi- 
ous behavior  of  the  filings. 

When  he  put  the  bottle  by,  with  a  deep  sigh, 
he  took  me  over  the  whole  place,  pointing  out 
with  particular  pride  the  apparatus  for  making 
the  paper  carbons  for  the  lamps,  and  the  new 
forms  of  Sprengel  mercury  pumps  that  did  bet- 
ter work  in  extracting  air  from  the  lamps  than 
any  yet  devised. 

Looking  back  to  that  first  visit  to  Edison,  the 
first  of  perhaps  a  score  that  I  have  had  occasion 
to  make  him  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  what  im- 
pressed me  most  was  the  immensity  of  the  field 
in  which  he  takes  an  interest.  Ask  Edison  what 
he  thinks  will  be  the  next  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  sewing-machine,  or  the  telescope,  the 
microscope,  the  steam-engine,  the  electric-motor, 
the  reaping-machine,  or  any  device  by  which 
man  accomplishes  much  work  in  little  time,  and 
invariably  it  will  be  found  that  he  has  some  novel 
ideas  upon  the  subject,  perhaps  fanciful  in  the 
extreme,  but  practical  enough  to  show  that  he 
has  pondered  the  matter.  He  shares  the  opinion 
of  the  gentleman  who  insists  that  whatever  is  is 
wrong,  but  only  to  this  extent :  that  whatever  is 
might  be  better.  Authority  means  nothing  to 
him  ;  he  must  test  for  himself.  For  instance,  it 
is  well  known  that  he  rejects  the  Newtonian 
theory  in  part  and  holds  that  motion  is  an  inher- 
ent property  of  matter ;  that  it  pushes,  finding 
its  way  in  the  direction  of  least  resistance,  and  is 
not  pulled  or  attracted.  ''  It  seems  to  me,"  he 
said  once,  ''  that  every  atom   is   possessed  by  a 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  253 

certain  amount  of  primitive  intelligence.  Look 
at  the  thousand  ways  in  which  atoms  of  hydro- 
gen combine  with  those  of  other  elements,  form- 
ing the  most  diverse  substances.  Do  you  mean 
to  say  that  they  do  this  without  intelligence  ? 
Atoms  in  harmonious  and  useful  relation  assume 
beautiful  or  interesting  shapes  and  colors,  or 
give  forth  a  pleasant  perfume,  as  if  expressing 
their  satisfaction.  In  sickness,  death,  decompo- 
sition, or  filth  the  disagreement  of  the  compo- 
nent atoms  immediately  makes  itself  felt  by  bad 
odors."  It  is  partly  due  to  this  belief  in  the  sen- 
sibility of  atoms  that  Edison  attributes  his  faith 
in  an  intelligent  Creator. 

It  is  hard  to  say  into  what  field  of  inquiry  Edi- 
son has  not  dipped.  He  told  me  once  that  when- 
ever he  travelled  he  carried  a  note-book  with 
him,  in  which  he  jotted  down  suggestions  for 
experiments  to  be  made.  Railway  journeys,  at  a 
time  when  Edison  was  a  constant  traveller,  were 
productive  of  much  material  of  this  kind,  for  the 
inventor  never  sleeps  when  travelling,  and  his 
brain  works,  going  over,  even  in  a  doze,  the  thou- 
sand and  one  aspects  of  his  work,  and  evolving 
theories  to  be  dismissed  almost  as  soon  as 
evolved.  His  mind,  when  at  rest,  reviews  his 
day's  work  almost  automatically,  just  as  a  chess- 
player's brain  will,  after  an  exciting  game,  go 
over  every  situation  in  a  half  dream-like  condi- 
tion and  evolve  new  solutions.  He  has  great 
respect  for  even  what  appear  to  be  the  most  in- 
consequential observations,  provided  they  are 
made  by  a  competent  person,  and  a  large  force 


254  INVENT0B8 

in  his  splendid  laboratory  at  Orange  is  always 
employed  in  studies  that  appear  to  the  outsider 


UJitf    4aiU£,      H*^"*^     OLII        f>^<    \/t/\JrO-irVt>%<xA%0^ 

If 


to  be  aimless  ;  for  instance,  the  action  of  chemi- 
cals upon  various  substances  or  upon  each  other. 
Strips  of  ivory  in  a  certain  oil  become  trans- 
parent in  six  weeks.     A  globule   of  mercury  in 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  255 

water  takes  various  shapes  for  the  opposite  poles 
of  the  electric-battery  upon  the  addition  of  a  lit- 
tle potassium.  There  is  no  present  use  for  the 
knowledge  of  such  facts,  but  it  is  recorded  in 
voluminous  note-books,  and  some  day  the  con- 
necting-link in  the  chain  of  an  invaluable  discov- 
ery may  here  be  found. 

My  next  visit  to  Menlo  Park  was  a  few  months 
later,  when  I  found  Edison  in  bed  sick  with  dis- 
appointment. The  lamps  had  again  taken  to  an- 
tics for  which  no  remedy  or  explanation  could 
be  discovered.  There  was  an  air  of  desolation 
over  the  place.  The  laboratory  was  cold  and 
comfortless.  Upon  every  side  were  signs  of 
strict  economy.  Most  of  the  assistants  were 
young  men  glad  to  work  for  little  or  nothing. 
For  the  last  month  Edison  had  been  working  in 
the  direction  of  a  general  improvement  of  all 
parts  of  the  lamp  instead  of  devoting  himself  to 
one  feature.  Expert  glass-blowers  were  brought 
to  Menlo  Park,  the  air-pumps  were  made  more 
perfect,  new  substances  were  tried  for  carbons. 
All  this  had  taken  time,  during  which  outsiders 
freely  predicted  failure.  The  stock  in  the  enter- 
prise fell  to  such  a  price  that  it  was  hard  to  raise 
money  for  the  maintenance  of  the  laboratory.  It 
was  argued,  and  with  some  truth,  as  I  have  had 
occasion  to  remark,  that  Edison  had  really  dis- 
covered nothing  new;  he  had  attempted  to  do 
what  a  dozen  famous  men  had  tried  before  him 
and  he  had  failed.  The  quotations  of  New  York 
gas  stocks  rose  again. 

The  next  time  I  visited  the  laboratory,  a  few 


256  INVENTORS 

days  later,  Edison  was  up  again  and  talking 
cheerfully.  But  he  had  grown  five  years  older 
in  five  months.  "  I  shall  succeed,"  he  said  to  me, 
'^  but  it  may  take  me  longer  than  I  at  first  sup- 
posed. Everything  is  so  new  that  each  step  is 
in  the  dark ;  I  have  to  make  the  dynamos,  the 
lamps,  the  conductors,  and  attend  to  a  thousand 
details  that  the  world  never  hears  of.  At  the 
same  time  I  have  to  think  about  the  expense  of 
my  work.  That  galls  me.  My  one  ambition  is 
to  be  able  to  work  without  regard  to  the  ex- 
pense. What  I  mean  is,  that  if  I  want  to  give  up 
a  whole  month  of  my  time  and  that  of  my  whole 
establishment  to  finding  out  why  one  form  of  a 
carbon  filament  is  slightly  better  than  another,  I 
can  do  it  without  having  to  think  of  the  cost. 
My  greatest  luxury  would  be  a  laboratory  more 
perfect  than  any  we  have  in  this  country.  I 
want  a  splendid  collection  of  material — every 
chemical,  every  metal,  every  substance  in  fact 
that  may  be  of  use  to  me,  and  I  hardly  know 
what  may  not  be  of  use.  I  want  all  this  right  at 
hand,  within  a  few  feet  of  my  own  house.  Give 
me  these  advantages  and  I  shall  gladly  devote 
fifteen  hours  a  day  to  solid  work.  I  want  none 
of  the  rich  man's  usual  toys,  no  matter  how  rich 
I  may  become.  I  want  no  horses  or  yachts — 
have  no  time  for  them.  I  want  a  perfect  work- 
shop." 

In  the  last  twelve  years  Edison  has  seen  his 
dream  fulfilled.  His  electric  light  has  not  dis- 
placed gas,  by  any  means,  but  it  has  been  the 
foundation  of  a  business  large  enough  to  make 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON 


257 


the  inventor  sufficiently  rich  to  build  the  finest 
laboratory  in  the  world,  in  the  most  curious 
room  of  which  are  to  be  found  the  three  hun- 
dred models  of  machinery  and  apparatus  of  vari- 
ous kinds  devised  by  Edison  in  the  last  twenty 
years  and  made  by  himself  or  under  his  eye.  He 
is  still  a  gaunt  fellow,  with  a  slight  stoop,  a  clean- 
shaven face,  and  a  low  voice.    His  hands  are  still 


The  Home  of  Thomas  A.  Edison. 


soiled   with   acids,  his   clothes  are  shabby,  and 
there  is  always  a  cigar  in  his  mouth. 

The  Edison  laboratory  deserves  a  chapter  by 
itself.  In  1886  Edison  bought  a  fine  villa  in  Llew- 
ellyn Park  at  a  cost  of  $150,000.  He  took  the 
house  as  it  stood,  with  all  its  luxurious  fittings, 
rather  to  please  his  wife  than  himself;  a  corner 
of  the  laboratory  would  suit  him  quite  as  well. 
Right  outside  the  gates  of  the  park  and  within 

17 


258 


INVENTORS 


view  of  the  house,  he  bought  ten  acres  of  land 
and  began  his  laboratory.  Two  handsome  struct- 
ures of  brick,  each  60  feet  wide,  100  feet  long, 
and  four  stories  high,  accommodate  the  machine- 
shop,  library,  lecture-room,  experimental  work- 
shops, assistants'  rooms  and  store-rooms.  The 
boiler-house  and  dynamo-rooms  are  outside  the 
main  buildings.  Also,  in  a  separate  room,  the 
floor  of  which  consists  of  immense  blocks  of 
stone,  are  the  delicate  instruments  of  precision 


Edison's  Laboratory. 

used  in  testing  electric  currents.  The  instru- 
ments in  this  one  room,  twenty  feet  square,  cost 
$18,000  to  make  and  to  import  from  Europe. 
Upon  first  entering  the  main  building,  the  visi- 
tor finds  what  is  apparently  a  busy  factory  of 
some  sort,  with  long  rows  of  machinery,  from 
steam-hammers  to  diamond-lathes.  Everywhere 
workmen  are  busy  at  their  tasks,  and  Edison  has 
good  reason  to  be  proud  of  his  laboratory  force, 
for  it  consists  of  the  picked  workmen  of  the 
country.    Whenever  he  finds  in  one  of  the  Edison 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  259 

factories  in  Newark,  New  York,  Schenectady,  or 
elsewhere  a  particularly  expert  and  intelligent 
man,  he  has  him  transferred  to  the  Orange  labor- 
atory, where,  at  increased  pay  for  shorter  hours, 
the  man  not  only  finds  life  pleasanter,  but  has 
a  chance  of  learning  and  becoming  somebody. 
The  whole  place  hums  with  the  rattle  of  ma- 
chinery and  glows  with  electric  light.  There 
are  eighty  assistants,  who  have  charge  of  the  va- 
rious departments.  The  most  expert  iron-work- 
ers, glass-blowers,  wood-turners,  metal-spinners, 
screw-makers,  chemists,  and  machinists  in  the 
country  are  to  be  found  here.  A  rough  drawing 
of  the  most  complicated  model  is  all  they  re- 
quire to  work  from. 

The  store-rooms  contain  all  the  material 
needed.  Four  store-keepers  are  employed  to 
keep  the  supplies,  valued  at  $100,000,  in  order 
and  ready  for  use  at  a  moment's  notice.  Each 
article  is  put  down  in  a  catalogue  which  shows 
the  shelf  or  bottle  where  it  may  be  found.  Every 
known  metal,  every  chemical  known  to  science, 
every  kind  of  glass,  stone,  earth,  wood,  fibre, 
paper,  skin,  cloth,  is  to  be  found  there.  In  mak- 
ing up  the  chemical  collection  an  assistant  was 
kept  at  work  for  weeks  going  through  the  three 
most  exhaustive  works  on  chemistry  in  English, 
French,  and  German,  making  a  note  of  every 
substance  mentioned,  and  this  list  constituted 
the  order  for  chemicals,  an  order,  by  the  way, 
which  it  required  seven  months  to  fill.  In  the 
glass  department,  for  instance,  there  is  every 
known    kind  of    glass,  from   plates   two   inches 


260  INVENT0R8 ' 

thick  to  the  finest  film,  and  if  anything-  else  in 
the  way  of  glass  is  needed,  the  glass-workers 
are  there  to  make  it.  This  stupendous  collec- 
tion of  material,  filling  one  floor,  is  intended  to 
guard  against  annoying  delays  that  might  occur 
at  critical  times  for  want  of  some  rare  material. 
In  1885,  when  working  upon  an  apparatus  for 
getting  a  current  of  electricity  directly  from  heat 
— the  thermo-electric  generator — Edison's  work 
was  brought  to  a  standstill  for  want  of  a  few 
pounds  of  nickel,  an  article  not  then  to  be  found 
in  any  quantity  in  this  country.  The  store-room 
was  organized  to  avert  such  delays.  The  library 
is  the  only  part  of  the  main  building  that  shows 
any  attempt  at  decoration.  It  is  a  superb  room, 
60  feet  by  40,  with  a  height  of  25  feet.  Gal- 
leries run  around  the  second  story.  At  one 
end  is  a  monumental  fireplace,  and  in  the  centre 
of  the  hall  a  fine  group  of  palms  and  ferns.  The 
room  is  finished  in  oiled  hard  wood  and  lighted 
by  electricity.  Fine  rugs  cover  the  floors.  The 
shelves  contain  nothing  but  scientific  works  and 
the  files  of  the  forty-six  scientific  periodicals  in 
English,  French,  and  German  to  which  Edison 
subscribes.  They  are  indexed  by  a  librarian  as 
soon  as  received,  so  that  Edison  can  see  at  a 
glance  what  they  contain  concerning  the  special 
fields  in  which  he  is  interested. 

Nothing  in  this  big  establishment,  often  em- 
ploying more  than  one  hundred  persons,  is  made 
for  sale.  It  is  wholly  devoted  to  experimental 
work  and  tests.  Its  expenses,  said  to  be  more 
than  $150,000  a  year,  are  paid  by  the  commer- 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  261 

cial  companies  in  which  Edison  is  interested,  he, 
on  his  part,  giving  them  the  benefit  of  any  im- 
provements made.  Thus  in  one  room  hundreds 
of  incandescent  electric  lamps  burn  night  and 
day  the  year  through.  Each  lamp  is  specially 
marked  and  when  it  burns  out  more  quickly  than 
the  average,  or  lasts  longer,  a  special  study  is 
made  as  to  the  contributing  causes.  It  may 
seem  impossible  that  the  suggestions  of  one  man 
can  keep  busy  a  big  workshop  upon  experiments 
the  year  round,  but  Edison  says  that  the  tempta- 
tion is  always  to  increase  the  force.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  the  list  of  Edison's  patents 
reaches  to  seven  hundred  and  forty,  and  that  on 
the  electric  light  alone  he  has  worked  out  sev- 
eral hundred  theories,  the  wonder  ceases.  Ten 
minutes'  work  with  a  pencil  may  sketch  an  ap- 
paratus that  a  dozen  men  cannot  finish  inside  of 
a  fortnight. 

When  the  new  Orange  laboratory  was  finished 
and  Edison  found  himself  with  time  and  means 
at  his  disposal,  his  first  thought  was  to  take  up  his 
phonograph.  The  history  of  the  great  hopes 
built  upon  the  phonograph  and  the  bitter  dis- 
appointment that  followed  is  too  familiar  to  need 
repetition  here.  As  may  be  imagined,  Edison 
is  most  keenly  bent  upon  tightening  the  loose 
screw  that  has  prevented  it  from  doing  all  that 
its  friends  predicted  for  it.  He  still  works  at 
other  problems,  but  chiefly  as  relaxation.  He 
rests  from  inventing  one  thing  by  inventing 
something  else. 

One  day  recently,  when  I  found  him  less  con- 


THOMAS  A.  EDISON  263 

fident  than  usual  as  to  the  triumph  of  the  phono- 
graph in  the  near  future,  he  said :  "  There  are 
some  difficulties  about  the  problem  that  seem 
insurmountable.  I  go  on  smoothly  until  at  a 
certain  point  I  run  my  head  against  a  stone 
wall ;  I  cannot  get  under,  over,  or  around  it. 
After  butting  my  head  against  that  wall  until  it 
aches,  I  go  back  to  the  beginning  again.  It  is 
absurd  to  say  that  because  I  can  see  no  possible 
solution  of  the  problem  to-day,  that  I  may  not 
see  one  to-morrow.  The  very  fact  that  this  cen- 
tury has  accomplished  so  much  in  the  way  of 
invention,  makes  it  more  than  probable  that  the 
next  century  will  do  far  greater  things.  We 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  ourselves  if  we  are  con- 
tent to  fold  our  hands  and  say  that  the  tele- 
graph, telephone,  steam-engine,  dynamo,  and 
camera  having  been  invented,  the  field  has  been 
exhausted.  These  inventions  are  so  many  won- 
derful tools  with  which  we  ought  to  accomplish 
far  greater  wonders.  Unless  the  coming  gener- 
ations are  particularly  lazy,  the  world  ought  to 
possess  in  1993  a  dozen  marvels  of  the  usefulness 
of  the  steam-engine  and  dynamo.  The  next  step 
in  advance  will  perhaps  be  the  discovery  of  a 
method  for  transforming  heat  directly  into  elec- 
tricity. That  will  revolutionize  modern  life  by 
making  heat,  power,  and  light  almost  as  cheap 
as  air.  Inventors  are  already  feeling  their  way 
toward  this  wonder.  I  have  gone  far  enough  on 
that  road  to  know  that  there  are  several  stone 
walls  ahead.  But  the  problem  is  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  in  view." 


X. 

ALEXANDER   GRAHAM   BELL. 

Sir  Charles  Wheatstone,  the  eminent  Eng- 
lish electrician,  while  engaged  in  perfecting 
his  system  of  telegraphy  discovered  that  wires 
charged  with  electricity  often  carried  noises  in 
a  curious  manner.  He  made  and  exhibited  at 
the  Royal  Society,  in  1840,  a  clock  in  which  the 
tick  of  another  clock  miles  away  was  conveyed 
through  a  wire.  This  experiment  appears  to 
have  been  one  of  the  germs  of  the  telephone.  In 
1844  Captain  John  Taylor,  also  an  Englishman, 
invented  an  instruraent  to  which  he  gave  the 
name  of  the  telephone,  but  it  had  nothing  elec- 
trical about  it.  It  was  an  apparatus  for  con- 
veying sounds  at  sea  by  means  of  compressed 
air  forced  through  trumpets.  He  could  make 
his  telephone  heard  six  miles  away.  The  first 
real  suggestion  of  the  telephone  as  we  know  it 
comes  from  Reis,  the  German  professor  of  phys- 
ics at  Friedrichsdorf,  who  in  i860  constructed 
with  a  coil  of  wire,  a  knitting-needle,  the  skin  of 
a  German  sausage,  the  bung  of  a  beer-barrel,  and 
a  strip  of  platinum  an  instrument  which  repro- 
duced the  sound  of  the  voice  by  the  vibration  of 
the  membrane  and  sent  a  series  of  clicks  along 
an  electric  wire  to  an  electro-magnetic  receiver 


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Professor  Bell   Sending  the   First   Message,  by  Long-distance  Telephone,  fronn    New  York  to   Chicago. 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM  BELL  265 

at  the  Other  end  of  the  wire.  The  same  idea 
was  taken  up  in  this  country  by  Elisha  Gray, 
Edison,  and  by  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  who 
first  exhibited  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition  an 
apparatus  that  transmitted  speech  by  electricity 
in  a  fairly  satisfactory  manner.  The  American 
claimants  to  the  honor  of  having  invented  the 
telephone  include  Daniel  Drawbaugh,  a  back- 
woods genius  of  Pennsylvania,  who  claims  to 
have  made  and  used  a  practical  telephone  in 
1867-68.  A  large  fortune  has  been  spent  in 
fighting  Drawbaugh's  claims  against  the  Bell 
monopoly,  but  the  courts  have  finally  decided  in 
favor  of  the  latter.  It  should  be  recorded  as  a 
matter  of  justice  to  Mr.  Gray,  that  he  appears  to 
have  solved  the  problem  of  conveying  speech  by 
electricity  at  about  the  same  time  as  Bell.  Both 
these  inventors  filed  their  caveats  upon  the  tele- 
phone upon  the  same  day — February  14,  1876. 
It  was  Bell's  good  fortune  to  be  the  first  to  make 
his  device  practically  effective. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell  is  not  an  American 
by  birth.  He  was  born  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland, 
on  the  I  St  of  March,  1847.  His  father,  Alexan- 
der Melville  Bell,  was  the  inventor  of  the  sys- 
tem by  which  deaf  people  are  enabled  to  read 
speech  more  or  less  correctly  by  observing 
the  motion  of  the  lips.  His  mother  was  the 
daughter  of  Samuel  Symonds,  a  surgeon  in  the 
British  navy. 

In  1872  the  Bells  moved  to  Canada,  and  young 
Alexander  Bell  became  widely  known  in  Boston 
as  an  authority  in  the  teaching  of  the  deaf  and 


266  INVENTOBB 

dumb.  He  first  carried  to  great  perfection  in 
this  country  the  art  of  enabling  the  deaf  and 
dumb  to  enunciate  intelligible  words  and  sounds 
that  they  themselves  have  never  heard.  Most 
of  his  art  he  acquired  from  his  father,  one  of  the 
most  expert  of  teachers  in  this  field.  The  elder 
Bell  is  still  active  in  his  work,  constantly  de- 
vising new  methods  and  experiments.  He  lives 
in  Washington  with  his  son  and  is  frequently 
heard  in  lectures  in  New  York  and  Boston. 

In  1873  Alexander  Bell  began  to  study  the 
transmission  of  musical  tones  by  telegraph.  It 
was  in  the  line  of  his  work  with  deaf  and  dumb 
people  to  make  sound  vibrations  visible  to  the 
eye.  With  the  phonautograph  he  could  obtain 
tracings  of  such  vibrations  upon  blackened  pa- 
per by  means  of  a  pencil  or  stylus  attached  to 
a  vibrating  cord  or  membrane.  He  also  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  tracings  upon  smoked  glass 
of  the  vibrations  of  the  air  produced  by  vowel 
sounds.  He  began  experimenting  with  an  ap- 
paratus resembling  the  human  ear,  and  upon  the 
suggestion  of  Dr.  Clarence  J.  Blake,  the  Boston 
aurist,  he  tried  his  work  upon  a  prepared  speci- 
men of  the  ear  itself.  Observation  upon  the 
vibrations  of  the  various  bones  within  the  ear 
led  him  to  conceive  the  idea  of  vibrating  a  piece 
of  iron  in  front  of  an  electro-magnet. 

Mr.  Bell  was  at  this  time  an  instructor  in 
phonetics,  or  the  art  of  visible  speech,  in  Mon- 
roe's School  of  Oratory  in  Boston.  One  of  his 
old  pupils  describes  him  then  as  a  swarthy, 
foreign  -  looking    personage,   more    Italian   than 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM  BELL  *267 

English  in  appearance,  with  jet-black  hair  and 
dark  skin.  His  manner  was  earnest  and  full  of 
conviction.  He  was  an  enthusiast  in  his  work, 
and  only  emerged  from  his  habitual  diffidence 
when  called  upon  to  talk  upon  his  studies  and 
views.  He  was  miserably  poor  and  almost  with- 
out friends.  When  he  was  attacked  with  muscu- 
lar rheumatism,  in  1873,  his  hospital  expenses 
were  paid  by  his  employer,  and  his  only  visitors 
were  some  of  the  pupils  at  the  school. 

Until  the  close  of  1874,  Bell's  experiments 
seemed  to  promise  nothing  of  practical  value. 
But  in  1875  he  began  to  transmit  vibrations  be- 
tween two  armatures,  one  at  each  end  of  a  wire. 
He  was  much  interested  at  the  time  in  multiple 
telegraphy  and  fancied  that  something  might 
come  of  some  such  arrangement  of  many  mag- 
netic armatures  responding  to  the  vibrations  set 
up  in  one. 

In  November,  1875,  he  discovered  that  the 
vibrations  created  in  a  reed  by  the  voice  could 
be  transmitted  so  as  to  reproduce  words  and 
sounds.  One  day  in  January,  1876,  he  called  a 
dozen  of  the  pupils  at  Monroe's  school  into  his 
room  and  exhibited  an  apparatus  by  which 
singing  was  more  or  less  satisfactorily  transmit- 
ted by  wire  from  the  cellar  of  the  building  to  a 
room  on  the  fourth  floor.  The  exhibition  creat- 
ed a  sensation  among  the  pupils,  but,  although 
no  attempts  were  made  by  Bell  to  conceal  what 
he  was  doing,  or  how  he  did  it,  the  noise  of  his 
discovery  does  not  seem  to  have  reached  the 
outside    world.      With    an    old    cigar-box,    two 


268.  INVENTORS 

hundred  feet  of  wire,  two  magnets  from  a  toy 
fish-pond,  the  first  Bell  telephone  was  brought 
into  existence.  The  apparatus  was,  however, 
not  yet  the  practical  telephone  as  we  know  it, 
but  it  was  sufficient  of  a  curiosity  to  warrant 
its  exhibition  in  an  improved  form  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  when  Sir  William  Thomson 
spoke  of  it  as  "  perhaps  the  greatest  marvel 
hitherto  achieved  by  the  electric  telegraph." 

The  next  year  Bell  succeeded  in  bringing  the 
telephone  to  the  condition  in  which  it  became 
of  immediate  practical  value.  Strange  to  say, 
the  public  was  at  first  slow  to  appreciate  the 
great  importance  of  the  invention,  and  when 
Bell  took  it  to  England,  in  1877,  he  could  find 
no  purchaser  for  half  the  European  rights  at 
$10,000.  In  this  country,  thanks  to  the  business 
energy  of  Professor  Gardiner  Hubbard,  of  Har- 
vard, BelFs  father-in-law,  the  telephone  was  soon 
made  commercially  valuable,  and  there  are  now 
said  to  be  nearly  six  hundred  thousand  telephones 
in  use  in  the  United  States  alone. 

Professor  Bell,  as  may  be  imagined,  is  not  idle. 
His  vast  fortune  has  enabled  him  to  continue 
costly  experiments  in  aiding  deaf  and  dumb 
people,  and  it  will  probably  be  in  this  field  that 
his  next  achievement  will  be  made.  Personally, 
he  is  a  reserved  and  thoughtful  man,  wholly 
given  up  to  his  scientific  work.  His  wife,  whom 
he  married  in  1876,  was  one  of  his  deaf  and  dumb 
pupils.  It  is  often  said  that  it  was  largely  due 
to  his  intense  desire  to  soften  her  misfortune 
that    his   experiments  were    so   exhaustive  and 


ALEXANDER   GRAHAM  BELL  269 

finally  became  so  productive  in  another  direction. 
His  home  life  in  Washington,  where  he  bought, 
in  1885,  the  superb  house  on  Scott  Circle  known 
as  "  Broadhead's  Folly,"  after  the  man  who  built 
it  and  ruined  himself  in  so  doing,  is  said  to  be 
an  ideally  peaceful  and  happy  one,  given  up  to 
study  and  efforts  to  alleviate  the  troubles  of  the 
deaf  and  dumb. 

As  in  the  case  of  most  inventions  of  such  im- 
mense value  as  the  telephone,  a  fortune  has  had 
to  be  spent  in  order  to  protect  the  patent  rights ; 
but  in  Bell's  case  the  inventor's  money  reward 
has  been  ample  and  is  now  said  to  amount  to  more 
than  $1,000,000  a  year.  Just  at  present  Mr.  Bell 
is  engaged  upon  a  modification  of  the  phono- 
graph, which  may  enable  persons  not  wholly 
deaf  to  hear  a  phonographic  reproduction  of  the 
human  voice,  even  if  they  cannot  hear  the  voice 
itself.  Honors  have  poured  in  upon  him  within 
the  last  fifteen  years.  In  1880  the  French  Gov- 
ernment awarded  him  the  Volta  prize  of  $10,000, 
which  Mr.  Bell  devoted  to  founding  the  Volta 
Laboratory  in  Washington,  an  institution  for  the 
use  of  students.  In  1882  he  also  received  from 
France  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 


XL 


AMERICAN     INVENTORS,   PAST  AND 
PRESENT. 

There  are  now  in  force  in  this  country  nearly 
three  hundred  thousand  patents  for  inventions 
and  devices  of  more  or  less  importance  and  aid 
to  everyone.  To  how  great  a  degree  the  world 
is  indebted  to  the  inventor,  very  few  of  us  real- 
ize. The  more  we  think  of  the  matter,  however, 
the  more  are  we  likely  to  believe  that  the  in- 
ventor is  mankind's  great  benefactor.  Watt 
should  stand  before  Napoleon  in  the  hero- 
worship  of  the  age,  and  the  man  who  perfected 
the  friction-match  before  the  author  of  an  epic. 
Some  day  this  redistribution  of  the  world's 
honors  will  surely  take  place,  and  it  should  be  a 
satisfaction  to  us  Americans  that  our  country 
stands  so  high  in  the  ranks  of  inventive  genius. 
Within  the  last  half  century  Americans  have 
contributed,  to  m^sntion  only  great  achievements, 
the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  electric  light, 
the  sewing-machine,  the  reaper,  and  vulcanized 
rubber,  to  the  world's  wealth — a  far  larger  con- 
tribution than  that  of  any  other  nation.  What 
may  not  the  next  generation  produce?  Some 
people  seem  to  believe  that  so  much  has  already 
been  invented  as  to  have  exhausted  the  field.     In 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  271 

this  connection  I  have  quoted  in  another  place 
some  remarks  Mr.  Edison  once  made  to  me  as 
to  what  the  next  fifty  years  might  bring  forth. 
Still  more  astonishing  than  our  past  fecundity 
in  invention  would  be  future  barrenness.  This 
century  has  done  its  work  and  produced  its 
marvels  with  comparatively  blunt  tools,  or  no 
tools  at  all.  The  next  century  will  be  able  to 
work  with  superb  instruments  of  which  our 
grandfathers  knew  nothing.  The  school-boy  to- 
day knows  more  of  the  forces  of  nature  and  their 
useful  application  than  the  magician  of  fifty  years 
ago.  It  has  been  said  that  the  fifteen  blocks  in 
the  ''  Gem  "  puzzle  can  be  arranged  in  more  than 
a  million  different  ways.  The  material  in  the 
game  at  which  man  daily  plays  is  so  infinitely 
more  complex  that  the  number  of  combi- 
nations cannot  be  written  out  in  figures.  The 
role  played  by  invention  in  modern  life  is 
infinitely  greater  than  during  preceding  ages. 
One  invention,  by  affording  a  new  tool,  makes 
others  possible.  The  steam-engine  made  pos- 
sible the  dynamo,  the  dynamo  made  possible  the 
electric  light.  In  its  turn  the  electric  light  may 
lead  to  wonders  still  more  extraordinary. 

The  degree  to  which  invention  has  contributed 
to  civilization  is  far  from  suspected  by  the  care- 
less observer.  Almost  everything  we  have  or 
use  is  the  fruit  of  invention.  Man  might  be  de- 
fined as  the  animal  that  invents.  The  air  we 
breathe  and  the  water  we  drink  are  provided  by 
Nature,  but  we  drink  water  from  a  vessel  of 
some  kind,   an  invention   of  man.     Even   if  we 


272  INVENTORS 

drink  from  a  shell  or  a  gourd,  we  shape  it  to 
serve  a  new  purpose.  If  we  want  our  air  hot- 
ter or  colder,  we  resort  to  invention,  and  a  vast 
amount  of  ingenuity  has  been  expended  upon  put- 
ting air  in  motion  by  means  of  fans,  blowers, 
ventilators,  etc.  We  take  but  a  small  part  of  our 
food  as  animals  do — in  the  natural  state.  The 
savage  who  first  crushed  some  kernels  of  wheat 
between  two  stones  invented  flour,  and  we  are 
yet  hard  at  it  inventing  improvements  upon  his 
process.  The  earliest  inventions  probably  had 
reference  to  the  procuring  and  preparing  of 
food,  and  the  ingenuity  of  man  is  still  exercised 
upon  these  problems  more  eagerly  than  ever  be- 
fore. During  the  last  fifty  years  the  power  of 
man  to  produce  food  has  increased  more  than 
during  the  preceding  fifteen  centuries.  Sixty 
years  ago  a  large  part  of  the  wheat  and  other 
grain  raised  in  the  world  was  cut,  a  handful  at  a 
time,  with  a  scythe,  and  a  man  could  not  reap 
much  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  acre  a  day. 
With  a  McCormick  reaper  a  man  and  two  horses 
will  cut  from  fifteen  to  twenty  acres  of  grain  a 
day.  In  the  threshing  of  grain,  invention  has 
achieved  almost  as  much.  A  man  with  a  ma- 
chine will  thresh  ten  times  as  much  as  he  for- 
merly could  with  a  flail. 

It  is  less  than  sixty  years  since  matches  have 
come  into  common  use.  Many  old  men  remem- 
ber the  time  in  this  country  when  a  fire  could  be 
kindled  only  with  the  embers  from  another  fire, 
as  there  were  no  such  things  as  matches.  Most 
of  us  who  have  reached  the  age  of  forty  remem- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  273 

ber  the  abominable,  clumsy  sulphur-matches  of 
i860,  as  bulky  as  they  were  unpleasant.  And  yet 
the  first  sulphur-matches,  made  about  1830,  cost 
ten  cents  a  hundred.  To-day  the  safety  match, 
certain  and  odorless,  is  sold  at  one-tenth  of  this 
price.  The  introduction  of  kerosene  was  one 
of  the  blessings  of  modern  life.  It  added  sev- 
eral hours  a  day  to  the  useful,  intelligent  life 
of  man,  and  who  can  estimate  the  influence  of 
these  evening  hours  upon  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion ?  The  evening,  after  the  day's  work  is  done, 
has  been  the  only  hour  when  the  workingman 
could  read.  Before  cheap  and  good  lights  were 
given  him,  reading  was  out  of  the  question.  Gas 
marked  a  step  in  advance,  but  only  for  large 
towns,  and  now  electricity  bids  fair  soon  to  dis- 
place gas ;  and  we  hear  vague  suggestions  of  a 
luminous  ether  that  will  flood  houses  with  a  soft 
glow  like  that  of  sunlight. 


TOWNSEND    AND     DRAKE — ThE     INTRODUCTION 

OF  Coal  Oil. 

In  1850  sperm  oil,  then  commonly  used  in 
lamps,  had  become  high-priced,  owing  to  the 
failure  of  the  New  Bedford  whalers,  and  cost 
$2.25  a  gallon.  Oil  obtained  by  the  distillation 
of  coal  was  tried,  but  was  also  too  costly — 
not  less  than  $1  a  gallon.  It  burned  well, 
but  its  odor  was  frightful.  The  problem  of  a 
cheap  and  pleasant  light  was  solved  by  James  M. 
Townsend  and  E.  L,  Drake,  both  of  New  Haven. 
18 


274:  INVENTORS 

In  1854  a  man  brought  to  Professor  Silliman,  of 
Yale,  some  oil  from  Oil  Creek,  Pa.,  to  be  tested. 
His  report  was  so  favorable  that  a  company 
was  formed,  which  leased  all  the  land  along  Oil 
Creek  upon  which  were  traces  of  the  new  rock 
oil.  The  hard  times  of  1857  came  before  any. 
headway  had  been  made,  and  the  company  tried 
to  find  some  way  of  ridding  itself  of  the  lease. 
At  this  time  Townsend,  who  knew  something 
about  the  property,  undertook  to  get  possession. 
Boarding  in  the  same  house  in  New  Haven  was 
E.  L.  Drake,  once  a  conductor  on  the  New  York 
&  New  Haven  Railroad,  who  had  been  obliged 
to  give  up  work  on  account  of  ill-health.  Town- 
send  proposed  that  as  Drake  could  get  railroad 
passes  as  an  ex-employee,  he  should  go  to  Penn- 
sylvania and  look  into  the  property.  He  did  so, 
and  reported  that  a  fortune  might  be  made  by 
gathering  the  oil  and  bottling  it  for  medicinal 
purposes.  Drake  and  Townsend  organized  the 
Seneca  Oil  Company.  The  oil  was  gathered 
by  digging  trenches,  and  was  sold  at  $1  a 
gallon.  Drake  suggested  that  it  might  be  well 
to  bore  for  oil.  A  man  familiar  with  salt-well 
boring  was  brought  from  Syracuse,  and  in  1859 
the  first  well  was  begun  at  Titusville  under  the 
supervision  of  Drake.  He  was  commonly  con- 
sidered by  the  neighbors  to  be  insane.  The 
work  was  costly  and  slow.  When  many  months 
and  about  $50,000  had  been  spent,  the  stockhold- 
ers in  the  company  refused  to  go  any  further — 
all  except  Townsend,  who  sent  his  last  $500  to 
Drake,   with   instructions   to  use   it    in   paying 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  275 

debts  and  his  expenses  in  reaching  home.  On 
the  day  before  the  receipt  of  this  money — 
August  29,  1859 — the  auger,  which  was  down 
sixty-eight  feet,  struck  a  cavity,  and  up  came  a 
fiow  of  oil  that  filled  the  well  to  within  five  feet 
of  the  surface.  Pumping  began  at  the  rate  of 
five  hundred  gallons  a  day,  and  a  more  power- 
ful pump  doubled  this  flow.  As  this  oil  was 
worth  a  dollar  a  gallon,  fortune  was  within  sight. 
But  the  very  quantity  of  the  oil  proved  to  be  the 
company's  ruin.  Their  works  were  destroyed 
by  fire  in  the  winter  of  1859-60,  and  before  they 
could  be  rebuilt,  scores  of  other  wells,  some  of 
them  requiring  no  pumping  apparatus,  had  been 
sunk  in  the  neighborhood.  The  supply  was  soon 
far  in  excess  of  the  demand,  which  was  limited 
by  the  small  number  of  refineries,  the  want  of 
good  lamps  in  which  to  burn  the  oil,  and  the  at- 
tacks by  manufacturers  of  other  oils.  Such  was 
the  effect  of  these  causes  that  the  new  oil  fell  to 
a  dollar  a  barrel,  a  price  so  low  that  it  did  not 
pay  for  the  handling.  The  Seneca  Oil  Company 
was  so  much  discouraged  that  they  sold  out 
their  leases  and  disbanded.  Both  Townsend  and 
Drake  would  have  died  richer  men  had  they 
never  heard  of  the  Pennsylvania  rock  oil. 


The  Clarks  and  the  Telescope. 

The  fame  of  American  telescopes  is  due  to  the 
work  and  inventions  of  the  Clark  family  of  Cam- 
bridgeport,    Mass.,  the  descendants  of  Thomas 


276  INVENTORS 

Clark,  the  mate  of  the  Mayflower.  The  foun- 
der of  the  great — in  a  scientific  sense — house  of 
Alvan  Clark  &  Sons,  telescope-makers,  was  a  re- 
markable man.  Until  after  his  fortieth  year  he 
devoted  himself  to  portrait-painting.  In  1843 
his  attention  was  accidentally  turned  toward 
telescope-making.      One  day  the  dinner-bell  at 


Alvan  Clark. 


Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Mass.,  happened  to 
break.  The  pieces  were  gathered  up  by  one  of 
Clark's  boys,  George,  w^ho  proceeded  to  melt 
them  in  a  crucible  over  the  kitchen  fire,  declar- 
ing that  he  was  going  to  make  a  telescope.  His 
mother  laughed,  but  his  father  was  deeply  in- 
terested and  helped  the  boy  make  a  five-inch 
reflecting  telescope  which  showed  the  satellites 
of  Jupiter.     This  was  the  beginning  of  telescope- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  277 

making  in  the  Clark  family,  an  industry  which 
has  given  to  the  scientific  world  its  most  remark- 
able lenses.  Alvan  Clark  dropped  his  paint- 
brushes, never  to  take  them  up  again  until  at  the 
age  of  eighty-three  he  made  an  excellent  portrait 
of  his  little  grandson.  To  Alvan  G.  Clark,  the 
present  head  of  the  house,  are  chiefly  due  the 
scores  of  devices  by  which  American  ingenuity 
has  surpassed  the  slower  European  methods. 
The  delicacy  required  in  the  manipulation  and 
grinding  of  the  immense  lenses  made  by  the 
Clarks  is  almost  incredible.  The  latest  triumph 
of  the  firm — a  forty-inch  lens  for  the  Spence 
Observatory  at  Los  iVngeles,  Cal. — required  two 
years  of  grinding  and  polishing  after  a  piece  of 
glass  perfect  enough  had  been  obtained.  So 
delicately  finished  is  it  that  half  a  dozen  sharp 
rubs  with  the  soft  part  of  a  man's  thumb  would 
be  sufficient  to  ruin  it.  Alvan  G.  Clark  is  now  a 
man  sixty-one  years  old.  He  has  lived  all  his 
life  at  the  home  in  Cambridgeport.  His  great- 
est sorrow  is  that  there  is  no  son  of  his  to  carry 
on  the  work  after  his  death.  His  only  son  died 
a  few  years  ago,  just  as  he  was  beginning  to  show 
wonderful  aptitude  in  the  art  which  has  made 
the  family  famous  in  all  the  great  observatories 
of  the  world. 


278  INVENTORS 


John  Fitch  and   Oliver  Evans — Steam 
Transportation. 

In  looking  over  the  work  done  by  American 
inventors,  the  great  names  are  those  to  be  found 
at  the  heads  of  the  preceding  chapters.  But 
the  list  is  by  no  means  exhausted.  Among  the 
early  men  of  achievement  in  the  field  of  inven- 
tion I  have  had  to  omit  at  least  a  dozen  whose 
work  deserves  more  than  a  paragraph.  The 
history  of  the  steamboat  is  not  complete  with- 
out reference  to  John  Fitch. 

Fulton  was  fortunate  in  making  the  first  really 
successful  attempt  at  propelling  boats  by  steam, 
but  Fitch  came  very  near  reaping  the  honors 
for  this  invention.  The  account  of  Fitch's  life 
and  experiments,  written  by  himself  and  now  in 
the  possession  of  the  Franklin  Library  of  Phil- 
adelphia, clearly  shows  that  this  unhappy  genius 
really  deserves  to  share  in  Fulton's  glory.  Fitch 
was  born  in  Connecticut,  in  January,  1743,  more 
than  twenty  years  before  Fulton.  He  was  a 
farmer's  boy  and  picked  up  knowledge  as  best 
he  could.  Before  he  was  twenty  he  had  learned 
clock-making  and  then  button-making.  It  was 
in  1788  that  he  obtained  his  first  patent  for  a 
steamboat.  His  experimental  boat  was  an  ex- 
traordinary affair,  fully  described  in  the  Coluni- 
^/«;^  (Philadelphia)  Magazine  for  December,  1786. 
Its  motive  power  consisted  of  a  clumsy  engine 
that  moved  horizontal   bars,   upon  which   were 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  279 

fastened  a  number  of  oars  or  paddles.  So  far  as 
possible  the  machine  imitated  the  movements  of 
a  man  rowing.  This  boat  made  eight  miles  an 
hour  in  calm  water.  Finding  nothing  but  ridi- 
cule for  his  project  here,  as  his  steamboat  cost 
too  much  money  to  run  as  a  commercial  under- 
taking, Fitch  went  to  Europe,  and  was  equally 
unsuccessful  there.  There  is  still  in  existence 
a  letter  from  him  in  which  he  predicts  that 
steam  would  some  day  carry  vessels  across 
the  Atlantic.  He  died  in  1796,  without  hav- 
ing contributed  more  than  a  curiosity  to  the 
art  of  steam  navigation. 

Another  early  inventor  was  Oliver  Evans,  who 
has  been  called  the  Watt  of  America.  In  1804 
Evans  offered  to  build  for  the  Lancaster  Turn- 
pike Company  a  steam-carriage  to  carry  one 
hundred  barrels  of  flour  fifty  miles  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  The  offer  was  derided.  Here  is  one 
of  Evans's  predictions  written  at  about  this  time : 
"  The  time  will  come  when  people  will  travel  in 
stages,  moved  by  steam-engines,  from  one  city 
to  another,  almost  as  fast  as  birds  fly,  fifteen  or 
twenty  miles  an  hour.  Passing  through  the  air 
with  such  velocity,  changing  the  scene  with 
such  rapid  succession,  will  be  the  most  rapid, 
exhilarating  exercise.  A  carriage  (steam)  will 
set  out  from  Washington  in  the  morning, 
the  passengers  will  breakfast  at  Baltimore,  dine 
at  Philadelphia,  and  sup  in  New  York  the  same 
day.  To  accomplish  this,  two  sets  of  railways 
will  be  laid  so  nearly  level  as  not  in  any  way  to 
deviate  more  than  two  degrees  from  a  horizon- 


280  INVENTORS 

tal  line,  made  of  wood,  or  iron,  or  smooth  paths 
of  broken  stone  or  gravel,  with  a  rail  to  guide  the 
carriages  so  that  they  may  pass  each  other  in 
different  directions  and  travel  by  night  as  well 
as  by  day.  Engines  will  drive  boats  ten  or 
twelve  miles  per  hour,  and  there  will  be  many 
hundred  steamboats  running  on  the  Mississippi." 
In  1805  Evans  built  a  steam-carriage  propelled, 
by  a  sort  of  paddle-wheel  at  the  stern,  the  pad- 
dles touching  the  ground.  This  apparatus  he 
named  the  "  Oructor  Amphibolis,"  and  it  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  the  first  application  of  steam 
in  America  to  the  propelling  of  land  carriages. 
He  died  in  18 19  without  having  seen  his  steam- 
carriage  come  to  anything  practicable.  He 
made  a  fortune,  however,  from  some  patents  upon 
flour-mill  improvements. 


Amos  Whittemore  and.  Thomas  Blanchard. 

In  the  domain  of  textile  fabrics  Amos  Whitte- 
more, the  Massachusetts  inventor  of  the  card- 
machine,  which  did  away  with  the  old-fashioned 
method  of  making  cards  for  cotton  and  woollen 
factories,  must  be  mentioned.  Before  Whitte- 
more's  machine  came  into  use,  about  1812,  such 
cards  were  made  by  hand,  the  laborer  sticking 
one  by  one  into  sheets  of  leather  the  wire  staples, 
which  operation  gave  work  to  thousands  of 
families  in  New  England  early  in  the  century. 
Whittemore  made  a  fortune  by  his  invention,  and 
devoted  the  last  years  of  his  life  to  astronomy. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  281 

Another  Massachusetts  boy,  Thomas  Blanch- 
ard,  invented  the  lathe  for  turning  irregular 
objects,  and  well  deserves  mention.  Born  in 
1788,  he  was  noted  as  a  bo}^  for  his  efficiency  in 
the  New  England  accomplishment  of  whittling, 
making  wonderful  windmills  and  water-wheels 
with  his  knife.  When  thirteen  years  old  he  made 
an  apple-paring  machine,  with  which  at  the  "  par- 
ing bees  "  held  in  the  neighborhood  he  could 
accomplish  more  than  a  dozen  girls.  Soon  after 
this  achievement  he  began  helping  his  brother  in 
the  manufacture  of  tacks.  The  operation  con- 
sisted in  stamping  them  out  from  a  thin  plate  of 
iron,  after  which  they  were  taken  up,  one  at  a 
time,  with  the  thumb  and  finger  and  caught  in 
a  tool  worked  by  the  foot,  while  a  blow  given 
simultaneously  with  a  hammer  held  in  the  right 
hand  made  a  flat  head  of  the  large  end  of  the 
tack  projecting  above  the  face  of  the  vise.  This 
was  the  only  method  then  known,  and  it  was  so 
slow  and  irksome  that  young  Blanchard  often 
grew  disgusted.  As  a  daily  task  he  was  given  a 
certain  quantity  of  tacks  to  make,  which  number 
was  ascertained  by  counting.  Finding  this  much 
trouble,  he  constructed  a  counting-machine,  con- 
sisting of  a  ratchet- Avheel  which  moved  one  tooth 
every  time  the  jaws  of  the  heading  tool  or 
vise  moved  in  the  process  of  making  a  tack. 
From  this  achievement  he  passed  to  a  tack  ma- 
chine, and  after  six  years  of  hard  work  turned 
out  an  apparatus  that  made  five  hundred  tacks 
a  minute.  He  sold  his  patent  for  the  trifle  of 
$5,000. 


282  INVENTORS 

With  part  of  this  money  he  began  his  experi- 
ments in  turning  musket-barrels,  an  operation 
that  was  simple  enough  except  at  the  breech, 
where  the  flat  and  oval  sides  had  to  be  ground 
down  or  chipped.  Blanchard  made  a  lathe  that 
turned  the  whole  barrel  satisfactorily.  While 
exhibiting  his  new  lathe  at  the  United  States 
Armory  at  Springfield,  occurred  the  incident 
that  led  to  Blanchard's  great  device  for  turning 
irregular  forms.  One  of  the  men  employed  in 
cutting  musket-stocks  remarked  that  Blanchard 
could  never  spoil  his  job,  for  he  could  not  turn  a 
gun-stock.  The  remark  struck  Blanchard,  who 
replied,  '^  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,  but  will  think 
of  it  a  while."  The  result  of  six  months'  study 
was  the  lathe  with  which  such  articles  as  gun- 
stocks,  shoe-lasts,  hat-blocks,  tackle-blocks,  axe- 
handles,  wig-blocks,  and  a  thousand  other  objects 
of  irregular  shape  may  now  be  turned.  While 
at  Washington  getting  his  patent,  Blanchard 
exhibited  his  machine  at  the  War  Office,  where 
many  heads  of  departments  had  assembled. 
Among  the  rest  was  a  navy  commissioner,  who, 
after  listening  to  Blanchard,  remarked  to  the  in- 
ventor :  "  Can  you  turn  a  seventy-four  ?  " 

''  Yes,"  was  the  reply,  ^'  if  you  will  furnish  the 
block."  Blanchard  afterward  made  many  inter- 
esting experiments  in  steam-carriages,  but  his 
chief  claim  to  fame  rests  upon  his  lathe. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  283 


Richard  M.  Hoe  and  the  Web-Press. 

From  the  end  of  the  first  half  of  this  century 
date  movements  of  extraordinary  importance  in 
the  world  of  American  invention.  The  locomo- 
tive, the  steam-engine  and  steam-boat,  the  tele- 
graph, reaping-machine,  the  printing-press,  all 
seemed  to  reach  an  era  of  wide  usefulness  at 
about  the  same  time.  It  was  in  1814  that  Walters 
first  printed  the  London  Times  hy  steam,  the 
sullen  pressmen  standing  around  waiting  for  a 
pretext  to  destroy  the  machinery,  and  only  pre- 
vented by  strategy  from  doing  so.  About  thirty 
37ears  afterward  Richard  M.  Hoe  first  turned 
his  attention  to  the  improvement  of  printing- 
presses.  The  founder  of  the  famous  house  of 
printing-press  makers,  Robert  Hoe,  was  born  in 
England.  His  son,  Richard  March  Hoe,  was 
born  in  New  York  on  the  12th  of  September, 
1812.  He  made  his  first  press  in  1840,  when  he 
turned  out  the  machine  known  as  "  Hoe's  Double- 
cylinder,"  which  was  capable  of  making  about  six 
thousand  impressions  an  hour,  and  was  the  ad- 
miration of  all  the  printers  in  the  city.  So  long 
as  the  newspaper  circulation  knew  no  great  in- 
crease this  wonderful  press  was  all-sufficient ;  but 
the  greater  the  supply  the  greater  grew  the 
demand,  and  a  printing-press  capable  of  striking 
off  papers  with  greater  rapidity  was  felt  to  be 
an  imperative  need.  It  was  often  necessary  to 
hold    the  forms  back  until  nearly  daylight  for 


284  INVENTORS 

the  purpose  of  getting  the  latest  news,  and  the 
work  of  printing  the  paper  had  to  be  done  in  a 
very  few  hours.  In  1842  Hoe  began  to  experi- 
ment for  the  purpose  of  getting  greater  speed. 
There  were  many  difficulties  in  the  way,  how- 
ever, and  at  the  end  of  four  years  of  experiment- 
ing he  was  about  ready  to  confess  that  the  ob- 
stacles were  insurmountable.  One  night  in  1846, 
while  still  in  this  mood,  he  resumed  his  experi- 
ments ;  the  more  he  reviewed  the  problem,  the 
more  difficult  it  seemed.  In  despair  he  was  about 
to  give  it  up  for  the  night,  when  there  flashed 
across  his  brain  a  plan  for  securing  the  type  on 
the  surface  of  a  cylinder.  This  was  the  solution 
of  the  problem,  and  within  a  year  our  leading 
newspapers  had  their  ''  Lightning  "  presses,  in 
which  from  four  to  ten  cylinders  were  used  to 
feed  sheets  of  paper  against  the  surface  of  the 
type  as  it  flew  around.  So  recently  as  1870  the 
ten-cylinder  Hoe  press,  printing  twenty  -  five 
thousand  sheets  an  hour,  was  considered  a  mar- 
vel. 

Then  came  the  perfecting  press,  a  far  smaller 
machine,  but  capable  of  five  times  as  much  work, 
thanks  to  the  substitution  of  rolls  of  paper  for 
separate  sheets  fed  in  one  by  one.  The  device 
by  which  the  web  of  paper  after  being  printed 
on  one  side  is  turned  over  and  printed  on  the 
other  side  in  the  same  machine  was  another 
triumph  of  American  ingenuity.  Stereotyping 
made  it  possible  to  print  from  a  dozen  presses 
at  the  same  time  without  the  trouble  of  setting 
up  new  type,  and  inventions  for  pasting,  folding, 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  285 

and  counting  the  papers  still  further  increased 
the  speed  at  which  papers  may  be  issued,  while 
at  the  same  time  decreasing  the  number  of  men 
employed  as  pressmen.  In  1865  it  required  the 
services  of  twenty-six  men  and  boys  to  print 
and  fold  twenty-five  thousand  copies  of  an  eight- 
page  paper  in  an  hour.  To-day  a  perfecting 
press,  with  the  aid  of  four  men,  does  four  times 
as  much  work.  It  has  been  recently  estimated 
that  to  print,  paste,  and  fold  the  Sunday  edition 
of  one  of  the  great  newspapers  with  the  ma- 
chinery of  1865  would  require  the  services  of 
five  hundred  persons. 


Thomas  W.  Harvey  and  Screw-making. 

The  gimlet-pointed  screw  patented  in  1838  by 
Thomas  W.  Harvey,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  is  a 
marked  instance  of  an  improvement  so  useful  that 
we  can  scarcely  realize  that  less  than  fifty  years 
ago  such  screws  were  unknown  to  the  carpenter, 
for  it  was  not  until  1846  that  Harvey  succeeded 
in  getting  people  to  abandon  the  old  blunt-ended 
screw  that  we  now  occasionally  find  in  build- 
ings put  up  before  1850.  Harvey  was  a  Vermont 
boy,  born  in  1795.  His  faculty  for  the  invention 
of  machinery  for  screw-making  and  other  pur- 
poses gave  him  and  his  associates  and  successors 
— Angell,  Sloan,  and  Whipple — great  fortunes 
according  to  the  estimate  of  that  day.  He  died 
in  1856. 


286 


INVENTORS 


C.  L.  Sholes  and  the  Typewriter. 

A  great  many  men  contributed  to  make  the 
typewriter  what  it  is  to-day — as  much  of  an  im- 


C.  L,  Sholes. 


provement  upon  the  pen  as  the  sewing-machine 
is  upon  the  needle.  So  long  ago  as  1843  some 
patents  were  taken  out  for  divers  forms  of  writ- 
ing-machines, all  more  or  less  impracticable.  It 
was  not  until  C.  L.  Sholes,  then  of  Wisconsin, 


FAST  AND  PRESENT  287 

took  up  the  problem,  in  1866,  that  the  present 
form  of  a  number  of  type-bars,  arranged  so  that 
their  ends  strike  upon  a  common  centre,  was  de- 
vised. Sholes  died  in  1890,  having  also  helped 
by  many  minor  devices  the  increase  in  the  use  of 
writing-machines.  From  1865  to  1873  he  made 
thirty  different  working  models  of  writing-ma- 
chines, devoting  himself  to  the  task  almost  day 
and  night  for  eight  years. 


B.    B.    HOTCHKISS   AND    HIS   GUNS. 

American  inventors  have  had,  as  a  rule,  but 
small  success  in  making  Europe  see  the  value  of 
their  inventions  before  this  country  has  proved 
it.  Morse  could  get  neither  England  nor  France 
to  take  an  interest  in  his  telegraph  schemes,  and, 
at  a  later  day,  Bell's  telephone  was  received 
in  England  as  a  curious  device,  but  not  worth 
investing  money  in.  An  exception  to  this  rule 
may  be  found,  however,  in  the  case  of  B.  B. 
Hotchkiss,  a  Connecticut  inventor,  who  during 
the  civil  war  conceived  the  idea  of  a  breech- 
loading  cannon.  In  1869  Hotchkiss  mounted 
one  of  his  small  guns  in  the  Brooklyn  Navy- 
yard,  but  found  no  encouragement  to  experi- 
ment further.  The  Franco-German  war  found 
him  in  Europe  with  a  breech-loading  gun  that 
would  throw  shells.  His  success  was  such  that 
there  is  not  a  civilized  country  where  Hotchkiss 
guns,  throwing  light  shells  with  a  rapidity  not 
dreamed  of  years  ago,  are  not  now  in  use.     The 


288 


INVENTORS 


inventor  has  made  a  large  fortune  and  has  had 
the  pleasure  of  sending  to  this  country  a  number 
of  guns  for  our  cruisers,  the  iVtlanta,  the  Boston, 


B.  B^  Hotchkii 


the  Chicago,  and  the  Dolphin.  So  great  is  the 
rapidity,  accuracy,  and  power  of  these  Hotch- 
kiss  rapid-fire  guns  that  some  experts  expect  to 
see  two-thirds  of  an  action  fought  with  these  or 
similar  pieces,  which  they  think  will  silence  and 
put  out  of  action  all  the  heavy  guns  in  a  few 
minutes  after  the  enemies  come  within  fifteen 
hundred  yards  of  each  other.  For  instance,  the 
latest  piece  is  a  six-pounder,  which,  with  smoke- 
less powder,  has  a  range  of  five  thousand  yards 
and  an  effective  fighting  range  of  one  thousand 
yards,  within  which  distance  a  target  the  size  of 
a  six-inch  gun  can  be  hit  nearl}^  every  time  and 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  289 

five  inches  of  wrought  iron  perforated.  A  speed 
in  firing  of  twenty-five  shots  a  minute  has  been 
attained. 


Charles  F.  Brush  and  the  Dynamo. 

A  trifling  incident  revealed  to  an  Italian  sa- 
vant the  fact  that  when  two  metals  and  the 
leg  of  a  frog  came  into  contact  the  muscles 
of  the  leg  contracted.  The  galvanic  battery 
resulted.  Years  later  another  observer  discov- 
ered that  if  a  wire  carrying  a  current  of  electric- 
ity was  wound  around  a  piece  of  soft  iron  the 
latter  became  a  magnet.  Out  of  these  simple 
discoveries  have  arisen  the  telegraph,  the  tele- 
phone, and  a  host  of  inventions  depending  upon 
electricity.  And  to-day,  with  all  the  wonders 
accomplished  in  this  field,  we  are  yet  upon  the 
threshold  of  the  enchanted  palace  that  electricity 
is  about  to  open  to  us.  Through  its  aid  we  shall 
one  day  enjoy  light,  heat,  and  power  almost  as 
freely  as  w^e  now  enjoy  air.  The  crops  will  be 
planted,  watered,  cultivated,  gathered,  and  trans- 
ported to  the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth  by 
electricity.  The  steam-engine  is  said  to  do  the 
work  of  two  hundred  million  men,  and  to  have 
been  the  chief  agent  in  reducing  the  average 
working  hours  of  men  in  the  civilized  world  in 
this  century  from  fourteen  hours  a  day  to  ten. 
But  electricity,  according  to  even  conservative 
judges,  will  accomplish  infinitely  more.  It  will 
make  possible  the  harnessing  of  vast  forces  of 
19 


290 


INVENTORS 


nature,  such  as  the  falls  of  Niagara,  because  the 
electric  current  can  be  transported  from  place  to 
place  at  small  cost  and  it  is  easily  transformed 
into  light  or  power  or  heat.  Within  a  few 
months  we  shall  see  the  first  results  of  the  great 
work  at  Niagara,  Before  many  years  the  power 
of  the  tides  is  certain  to  be  used  along  the  sea- 


Charles  F.  Brush. 

board  for  producing  electricity.  Here  is  a  force 
equal  to  that  of  a  million  Niagaras  going  to 
waste. 

The  late  Clerk  Maxwell,  when  asked  by  a  dis- 
tinguished scientist  what  was  the  greatest  scien- 
tific discovery  of  the  last  half-century,  replied  : 
"  That  the  Gramme  machine  is  reversible."  In 
other  words,  that  power  will  not  only  produce 
electricity,    but    that    electricity    will    produce 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  291 

power.  By  turning  a  big  wheel  at  Niagara  we 
can  produce  an  electric  current  that  will  turn 
another  wheel  for  us  fifty,  or  perhaps  five 
hundred  miles  away.  The  dynamo  is  one  of  the 
great  achievements  of  the  day  to  which  Charles 
F.  Brush,  of  Cleveland,  O.,  has  devoted  him- 
self with  much  signal  success.  Brush  was  born 
in  March,  1849,  ^^  Euclid  Township  near  Cleve- 
land, and  his  early  years  were  spent  on  his 
father's  farm.  When  fourteen  years  old  he  went 
to  the  public  school  at  CoUamer,  and  later  to  the 
Cleveland  High-school,  and  as  early  as  1862  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  making  magnetic  machines 
and  batteries  for  the  high-school.  During  his 
senior  year  in  the  high-school,  the  chemical  and 
physical  apparatus  of  the  laboratory  of  the  school 
was  placed  under  his  charge.  In  this  year  he 
constructed  an  electric  motor  having  its  field 
magnets  as  well  as  its  armature  excited  by  the 
electric  current.  He  also  constructed  a  micro- 
scope and  a  telescope,  making  all  the  parts  him- 
self, down  to  the  grinding  of  the  lenses.  He  de- 
vised an  apparatus  for  turning  on  the  gas  in  the 
street-lamps  of  Cleveland,  lighting  it  and  turning 
it  off  again.  When  he  was  eighteen  years  of  age 
he  entered  Michigan  University  at  Ann  Arbor, 
and,  following  his  particular  bent,  was  graduated 
as  a  mining  engineer  in  1869,  one  year  ahead 
of  his  class.  Returning  to  Cleveland  he  began 
work  as  an  analytical  chemist  and  soon  became 
interested  in  the  iron  business.  In  1875  Brush's 
attention  was  first  called  to  electricity  by  George 
W.  Stockly,  who  suggested  that  there  was  an  im- 


292  INVENTORS 

mense  field  ready  for  a  cheaper  and  more  easily 
managed  dynamo  than  the  Gramme  or  Siemens, 
the  best  types  then  known.  Stockly,  who  was  in- 
terested in  the  Telegraph  Supply  Company,  of 
Cleveland,  agreed  to  undertake  the  manufacture 
of  such  a  machine  if  one  was  devised.  In  two 
months  Brush  made  a  dynamo  so  perfect  in  every 
way  that  it  was  running  until  it  was  taken  to  the 
World's  Fair  in  1893,  Having  made  a  good  dy- 
namo, the  next  step  was  a  better  lamp  than  those 
in  use.  Six  months  of  experimenting  resulted  in 
the  Brush  arc  light.  Stockly  was  so  well  satisfied 
with  the  commercial  value  of  these  inventions 
that  the  Telegraph  Supply  Company,  a  small 
concern  then  employing  about  twenty-five  men, 
was  reorganized  in  1879,  ^^  the  Brush  Electric 
Company.  In  1880  the  Brush  Company  put  its 
first  lights  into  New  York  City,  and  it  has  since 
extended  the  system  until  there  is  scarcely  a 
town  in  the  country  where  the  light  may  not  be 
found.  Besides  "dynamos  and  lamps,  the  im- 
mense establishment  at  Cleveland  employs  its 
twelve  hundred  men  in  making  carbons,  storage- 
batteries,  and  electro-plating  apparatus.  Mr. 
Brush  is  a  self-taught  mechanic,  able  to  do  any 
w^ork  of  his  shops  in  a  manner  equal  to  that  of 
an  expert.  He  is  intensely  practical,  never  over- 
sanguine,  and  an  excellent  business  man.  If  a 
delicate  piece  of  work  is  to  be  done  for  the  first 
time,  he  will  probably  do  it  with  his  own  hands. 
He  is  not  fond  of  experiment  for  the  experi- 
ment's sake ;  he  wants  to  see  the  practical  utility 
of  the  aim  in  view  before  devoting  time  to  its  at- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  293 

tainment.  Of  the  scores  of  patents  he  has  taken 
out,  two-thirds  are  said  to  pay  him  a  revenue. 
In  1 88 1,  at  the  Paris  Electrical  Exposition,  Brush 
received  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
In  personal  appearance  there  is  nothing  of  the 
round-shouldered,  impecunious,  studious  inven- 
tor about  him.  He  is  six  feet  or  more  in  height, 
and  so  fine  a  specimen  of  manhood  that  Gam- 
betta,  the  French  statesman,  once  remarked  that 
the  man  impressed  him  quite  as  much  as  the 
inventor. 


ElCKEMEYER  AND    HiS   MOTOR, 

In  the  same  field  of  electricity,  as  applied  to 
every-day  life,  a  Bavarian  by  birth,  but  an  Amer- 
ican by  adoption,  Rudolf  Eickemeyer,  of  Yon- 
kers,  has  done  some  valuable  work  in  devising 
a  useful  form  of  dynamo.  His  machines  are 
now  used  almost  exclusively  for  elevators  and 
hoisting  apparatus,  one  large  firm  of  elevator 
builders  having  put  in  no  less  than  six  hundred 
Eickemeyer  motors  within  the  last  four  years. 
As  electricity  becomes  more  and  more  useful 
for  small  powers,  such  as  lathes,  pumps,  and  ele- 
vators, an  effective  and  simple  motor  becomes 
of  the  utmost  importance.  Rudolf  Eickemeyer 
was  born  in  October,  1831,  at  Kaiserslautern, 
Bavaria,  where  his  father  was  employed  as  a 
forester.  He  was  educated  at  the  Darmstadt 
Polytechnic  Institute  and  at  once  showed  a  pre- 
dilection for  scientific  work.     When  still  a  boy 


294  INVENTORS 

he  joined  the  Revolutionists  under  Siegel,  and 
after  the  upheaval  of  1848  came  here  with  Siegel, 
Carl  Schurz,  and  George  Osterheld,  the  latter 
afterward  becoming  his  partner.  The  young 
man's  first  work  here  was  as  an  engineer  on  the 
Erie  Railroad  line,  then  building.  In  1854  he  es- 
tablished himself  in  Yonkers  in  the  business  of 
repairing  the  tools  used  in  the  many  hat-shops  of 
that  already  flourishing  city.  The  next  twenty 
years  of  his  life  were  devoted  to  inventions  and 
improvements  in  every  branch  of  hat-making. 
His  shaving-machines,  stretchers,  blockers,  press- 


Rudolph  Eickemeyer 


ers,  ironers,  and  sewing-machines  substituted 
mechanism  for  laborious  and  slow  methods  of 
hand  work.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war  Eicke- 
meyer  was   quick   to   see   the   opportunity    for 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  295 

turning  his  factory  to  other  uses,  and  vast  quan- 
tities of  revolvers  were  made  there.  When  that 
industry  declined,  he  took  up  the  manufacture 
of  mowing-machines,  having  invented  a  driving 
mechanism  for  such  machines  that  met  with 
wide  favor.  The  introduction  of  the  Bell  tele- 
phone in  Yonkers  first  turned  Eickemeyer's  at- 
tention to  electricity,  and  for  the  last  ten  years 
he  has  devoted  himself  almost  exclusively  to  the 
invention  and  manufacture  of  electric  motors. 
His  first  successful  invention  in  this  field  was  a 
dynamo  to  furnish  light  for  railroad  trains. 
From  this  he  was  led  to  the  invention  of  a  dyna- 
mo capable  of  doing  effective  work  at  much 
lower  speed  than  that  usually  employed,  and 
this  has  proved  to  be  his  most  valuable  achieve- 
ment. Some  improvements  in  winding  the  arma- 
tures have  also  been  accepted  as  valuable  and 
adopted  by  other  manufacturers.  In  connection 
with  storage  batteries  Mr.  Eickemeyer  has  also 
done  a  good  deal  of  interesting  work.  But  he 
is  chiefly  known  to  the  electrical  world  as  the 
inventor  of  a  most  useful  dynamo  for  power 
purposes.  For  the  last  forty  years  he  has  been 
one  of  the  men  who  have  most  aided  in  the 
growth  of  Yonkers,  taking  great  interest  in  all 
questions  pertaining  to  its  government  and 
school  system.  He  was  married  in  1856  to 
Mary  T.  Tarbell,  of  Dover,  Me.,  and  his  eldest 
son,  Rudolf  Eickemeyer,  Jr.,  is  associated  with 
him  in  business. 


296 


INVENTORS 


George  Westinghouse,  Jr.,  and  the  Air- 
brake. 

George  Westinghouse,  Jr.,  to  whom  is  due  the 
railroad  air-brake,  and  who  was  also  largely  in- 
strumental in  revolutionizing  Pittsburgh  by  the 
introduction   of  natural  gas,  was  born   at  Cen- 


George  Westinghouse,  Jr. 

tral  Bridge,  in  Schoharie  County,  N.  Y.,  in  1846. 
His  father  was  a  builder  and,  later,  superinten- 
dent of  the  Schenectady  Agricultural  Works, 
and  it  was  in  the  shops  of  these  works  that  the 
boy  found  his  vocation.  Before  he  was  fifteen 
he  had  modelled  and  built  a  steam  engine.     The 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  297 

war  took  him  away  from  work  in  1864,  but  when 
that  was  over  he  returned  to  Schenectady  and, 
although  yet  in  his  teens,  he  began  to  attempt 
improvements  upon  every  device  that  presented 
itself.  Sometimes  he  was  successful.  Among 
one  of  his  first  valuable  achievements  was  a 
steel  railroad  frog  that  resulted  in  a  good  deal 
of  money  and  some  reputation.  This  was  in 
1868.  While  in  Pittsburgh  making  his  frogs, 
which  sold  well,  he  one  day  came  across  a  news- 
paper account  of  the  successful  use  of  com- 
pressed air  in  piercing  the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel. 
His  success  in  the  field  of  railroad  appliances 
had  led  him  to  study  the  question  of  better 
brakes,  and  the  suggestion  of  compressed  air 
came  to  him  as  a  revelation.  To  stop  a  train  by 
the  old  methods  was  a  matter  of  much  time  and 
a  tremendous  expenditure  of  muscular  energy 
by  the  brakeman,  whose  exertions  were  not  al- 
ways effective  enough  to  prevent  disaster.  West- 
inghouse  consulted  one  or  two  friends,  who  were 
inclined  to  ridicule  the  idea  that  a  rubber  tube 
strung  along  under  the  cars  could  do  better 
work  than  the  men  at  the  brakes.  Fortunately, 
he  was  able  to  make  the  experiment,  and  the  air- 
brake was  speedily  recognized  as  one  of  the  im- 
portant inventions  of  the  century. 

When  petroleum  was  discovered  in  the  fields 
near  Pittsburgh,  some  ten  years  ago,  Mr.  West- 
inghouse  was  greatly  interested,  and  at  once 
suggested  that  perhaps  oil  might  be  found  near 
his  own  home  in  Washington  County.  He  de- 
cided to  test  the  matter,  and  planted  a  derrick 


298  INVENTORS 

on  his  own  grounds.  The  drill  was  started  in 
December,  1883,  and  at  a  depth  of  1,560  feet  a 
vein  was  struck,  not  of  oil,  as  was  anticipated, 
but — what  had  not  been  counted  upon  as  among- 
the  contingencies — of  gas.  Gas  was  not  what 
Westinghouse  was  after  or  wanted,  but  there  it 
was,  and  not  wishing  to  let  it  run  to  waste,  he 
began  to  consider  what  use  could  be  made  of  it. 
Other  people  who  had  been  boring  for  oil  also 
struck  gas,  which,  taking  fire,  shot  up  twenty  or 
thirty  feet.  If  such  gas  could  be  made  to  serve 
foundry  purposes,  here  was  a  gigantic  power 
going  to  waste.  Within  three  years  the  business 
grew  to  be  an  immense  one.  The  company  or- 
ganized by  Mr.  Westinghouse  owned  or  con- 
trolled fifty-six  thousand  acres,  upon  which  were 
one  hundred  wells  and  a  distributing  plant  of  four 
hundred  miles  of  pipes.  Notwithstanding  the 
failure  of  some  of  the  wells  since  then,  natural 
gas  is  an  extraordinary  boon  for  which  Pittsburgh 
has  to  thank  Mr.  Westinghouse.  Of  late  years 
this  inventor's  energies  have  been  turned  toward 
electric  machinery  for  lighting  and  power,  espe- 
cially as  applied  to  railroad  purposes,  and  a  num- 
ber of  useful  devices  have  resulted.  Mr.  West- 
inghouse is  still  in  the  prime  of  life  and  is  activity 
personified.  He  makes  his  home  in  Pittsburgh, 
and  is  naturally  looked  upon  as  one  of  its  lead- 
ing spirits. 

The  field  of  electric  invention  is  so  vast  and  so 
actively  worked  that  one  cannot  take  up  a  news- 
paper without  finding  reference   to    some    new 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  299 

achievement  made  possible  by  this  wonderful 
agent,  whose  real  powers  were  unsuspected  fifty 
years  ago.  Aside  from  the  direct  value  of  these 
inventions  in  promoting  the  comfort  and  increas- 
ing the  wealth  of  the  country  there  is  another 
factor  to  be  considered  having  the  most  vital  re- 
lation to  the  industries  of  the  country  and  its 
powers  of  production.  The  large  number  of  in- 
ventions made  in  these  United  States  implies  a 
high  degree  of  intelligence  and  mental  activity 
in  the  great  body  of  the  people.  It  indicates 
trained  habits  of  observation  and  trained  powers 
of  applying  knowledge  which  has  been  acquired. 
It  shows  an  ability  to  turn  to  account  the  forces 
of  Nature  and  train  them  to  the  service  of  man, 
such  as  has  been  possessed  by  the  laborers  of 
no  other  country.  It  suggests  as  pertinent  the 
inquiry  whether  any  other  country  is  so  well 
equipped  for  competition  in  production  as  our 
own  ;  whether  in  any  other  country  the  mechanic 
is  so  efficient  and  his  labor,  therefore,  so  cheap 
as  in  our  own  ;  whether  he  does  not  exhibit  the 
seeming  paradox  of  receiving  more  for  his  labor 
than  in  any  other  country,  and  at  the  same  time 
doing  more  for  what  he  receives. 

THE  END. 


Date  Due 

§s  mr 

JUL   2  2 

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MAP  : 

5  0   1994 

if.no 

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